


The Joys and Perils of Field Research

by bob_fish, enemytosleep



Series: The Jungle Adventure of Doom [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Boys Kissing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Groping, Humor, Illustrations, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Post Ep99
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23943055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bob_fish/pseuds/bob_fish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemytosleep/pseuds/enemytosleep
Summary: They are sitting on the same chair, no less, at the desk in the captain’s quarters. It’s a large chair, and neither of them are large individuals, but the fit is tight. There is a line of heat from where Caleb’s hip and his long leg presses against Essek’s. Caleb taps his boot against Essek’s as he works from memory, replicating the notes from Essek’s own spellbook to make use of the time Essek needs to transcribe. Essek bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t like to be dramatic, but given enough time, he can imagine dying of this.______Or the fic where Essek and Caleb try to find alone time on Rumblecusp.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Series: The Jungle Adventure of Doom [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682572
Comments: 160
Kudos: 427





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Illustrations are by Bob_Fish
> 
> This story was drafted during the hiatus between episodes 99 and 100, so is only compliant through episode 99.

The late afternoon air is warm and dense, but slightly less so by the water. It also helps that they’re flying: it creates the effect of a breeze where there is none, cool against the exposed skin of Essek’s arms and neck. As he and Caleb descend toward the deck of the ship, there is a loud crash in the jungle behind them. Caleb swears under his breath, and they both turn in mid-air, prepared to fly back to—

The archfey is towering over the canopy, easily double the height of the surrounding trees. He pulls a face. “ _I don’t know, this feels more awkward than holy_.” His voice booms painfully even at this distance.

Caleb laughs and takes Essek’s hand in his, tugs him downward. Essek follows him down to the shipdeck. There is something very grounding about using magic for convenience rather than magic for survival, a level of civilisation that puts Essek more at ease; that he had adequate arcane means to avoid trekking back to the ship or rowing a boat from shore is the icing on the proverbial cake.

Feet safely on the deck’s surface, Essek glances back at the island jungle and the giant fey, who is now shrinking rapidly out of sight.

“Tell me,” Essek begins, “have you all been … working with this entity the entire time or…?”

“Jester has known him since she was but a small child,” Caleb answers, “though we have only met him directly much more recently. A few weeks ago, to be more precise.”

“And he is seeking to ascend to godhood?” 

Essek has been dying to ask this all day. He is not a religious man by any means, but he still fears the powers of the unknown and how that power can be used to exploit mortals. He is too young to directly recall the Dark Ages when Lloth held his people under her tyrannical thumb, but the hurt of it is still evident in the Dynasty. Beings with such powers, as far as Essek has understood them, have not had the interest of Exandria in their hearts — nor the interests of Xhorhas, nor Essek’s own interests. The idea that such tyranny might be repeated, whether through malice or foolishness, is deeply disquieting to consider. 

“I’m not entirely sure I know that answer,” Caleb says. “I get the feeling it was all meant for his own entertainment and that it’s now losing its appeal.” He gives Essek’s hand a firm squeeze. “Jester trusts him, though, and I trust Jester. I don’t think we have to be overly worried of the Traveler.”

Essek sighs. He’s not sure he’s ready to accept things just like that, but he is finding it increasingly difficult to argue against Jester as each day passes. Still, as they say, _never trust the fey_.

“Come,” Caleb says teasingly, “let’s make use of this quiet before the others return.”

“Of course.”

Essek’s pulse quickens. It’s been some time since he’d sought the private company of another man, and the last few days with Caleb have filled him with ideas, images and longings that were, perhaps, not entirely wise. Not that any of his trysts have been particularly wise, but this is different. It _feels_ different. He tries to school his face and even out his breathing as they begin walking across the ship. This is not a tryst: this is an academic endeavor, literally. Obtaining this spell is the official reason Essek delayed his return. 

“The captain’s quarters have a large desk,” Caleb says as they make their way toward the aft of the ship, hand in hand. “Fjord is happy for us to make use of it for transcribing.”

“Ah,” Essek says. “Precise notation was rather challenging sitting on Jester’s bed.” To be fair, it was the only real bed on board that he’d seen outside of the captain’s. The others are more reminiscent of the cots he’d seen in Dynasty barracks. 

Caleb looks at him and makes a rueful, half-laughing noise. “I’ve composed spells while perched on a log before.” He dips his gaze towards the middle distance. “I suppose it’s all a question of what you’re used to.”

Essek curses himself internally. He recalls Caleb as he was when he first arrived in Xhorhas. The man has clearly endured hardship and privation. That was indelicate of Essek, and unthinking, to remind Caleb of that gulf of experience between them. 

Caleb touches his elbow. “But it’s much more pleasant to sit at a desk.” Essek twitches a smile, hoping this is not of all things an attempt to make him feel better about his own gaffe. Caleb pushes open the door to the large quarters in the back, somewhat familiar to Essek as he’d used them previously as a changing room. It’s a comfortable space, as far as comfort and sea vessels go, and Essek feels slightly more relaxed here.

“I was wondering whether you would like for me to take a brief look at the notes you were making on the barrier spell before you transcribe the Transmogrification?”

“Ah, yes,” Essek says as he begins to conjure his spellbook, “that would be helpful, thank you.” 

Essek is most certainly _not_ looking at the large bed across the room.

  


_____________________

This is unbearable. 

Well, perhaps not unbearable. Severely taxing. 

Caleb’s pen nib scratches against the too-cheap paper of a parchment roll as he draws, with care, a near-perfect circle. He dips his nib in the inkpot and begins tracing the filigree lines of the first layer of glyphs around the perimeter. He frowns in concentration; his jaw works a little. Essek can smell the seawater on his skin from the dip Caleb took earlier. 

They are sitting on the same chair, no less, at the desk in the captain’s quarters. It’s a large chair, and neither of them are large individuals, but the fit is tight. There is a line of heat from where Caleb’s hip and his long leg presses against Essek’s. Caleb taps his boot against Essek’s as he works from memory, replicating the notes from Essek’s own spellbook to make use of the time Essek needs to transcribe. Essek bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t like to be dramatic, but given enough time, he can imagine dying of this. 

The day of their arrival on Rumblecusp has been—well, it has been a day. It was hard enough to snatch this time, holed up in the captain’s cabin of the Nein’s absurdly named ship, to share their work with each other; so they have been attempting to be professional about this. 

As Essek carefully copies out their transmogrification spell, translating Caleb’s notation into his own, he is very aware of Caleb’s eyes on him. The murmured explanations and warm breath on his cheek when he asks for a clarification of some part of Caleb’s eccentric, efficient personal shorthand tingle pleasantly in a lingering fashion. Rehearsing the somatic sequences is worse, Caleb’s hand moving with Essek’s while his other palm sits on the small of Essek’s back, radiating heat. When they studied together before, the spark between them was bearable, just an extra frisson that enhanced the intellectual pleasure of moving their minds together. Now, though, nothing enhances anything: all Essek wants is to banish the spellbook back to his wristpocket, put his mouth over Caleb’s, and move this conversation to the bed across the cabin. 

Their eyes keep meeting, but Essek absolutely refuses to interrupt what should be a time for study and arcane discovery. Essek himself may be undertaking the more tedious task of transcribing the finished spell to his personal spellbook, but Caleb is dissecting his notes on their newest creation and could, in theory, find the perfect formula while Essek copies. Essek absolutely refuses to interrupt an opportunity for arcane learning which he knows to be precious for Caleb, who is self-taught, who has no mentor and no academy and few peers. Besides, Essek has displayed a rather poor amount of self-control on this trip, and if he’s—potentially? no, definitely—to return to his life in Rosohna, he needs to get these urges under control once more. 

Caleb blots the ink on his paper, blows on it gently, and leaves it open to dry. Essek stares with him at the precious inks slowly drying upon the page. He risks an arm around Caleb’s back, a hand stroking his side. Caleb sighs, leans in, puts his lips to Essek’s temple. “To think,” Caleb says, “I could hardly wait for the copying to be done. This is very unlike me.” 

He reaches out, dabs a finger at the ink and checks it. Then he folds the parchment full of notations, closes it within his spellbook—and the two of them are somehow immediately on their feet, hands upon each other, kissing. 

The next couple of minutes are something of a pleasant blur. 

However, it is definitely Caleb who tugs them down towards the bed that Essek has been so studiously ignoring, and Caleb who pulls aside the diaphanous fabric of Essek’s undershirt to kiss the bare skin of his shoulder, and Caleb who fits a leg between his, as, still frantically kissing, they begin to move together. Essek is mostly sure he managed to conjure away his own spellbook, but in this moment he finds he doesn’t quite care.

It feels like every arcane discussion, every study session, has been building a tension between them that has now ignited a spark, become actual fire. Essek runs his hands down Caleb’s back, takes in the contours of lean muscle and bone, the rippling of Caleb’s spine as they roll their bodies together, continually kissing—

The door crashes open. “Hey so, Caleb, you think you’re ready to put up the dome—”

Essek scrambles to remove his hand from Caleb’s rear and Caleb turns such a bright shade of red that Essek can feel the heat and embarrassment radiate off of him. 

Caleb stutters and Beauregard attempts to block them from view with her hands as she turns her face away. “Jeez, you should _warn_ people when you’re not actually studying.” She pulls a dramatically disgusted face. “It’s, like, seared into my brain.”

“I’m sorry, Beau.” Caleb says breathily, pushing hair out of his eyes. “I suppose we both … lost track of time.” 

“Whatever, man. We’re bedding down for the night, so come down soon.”

Without waiting for a reply, she backs out of the room and closes the door.

Then, the door creaks partly open once again, and Beauregard’s hand slides into view, thumb up.

  


_____________________

As they each begin setting up their notes on the rocky shore, Essek can’t help but marvel at what lengths he’s traveled for arcane knowledge in the past few days. There is no replacement for a well-stocked laboratory with an adjacent reference library, but after Caleb’s comment yesterday, he is determined to show more adaptability. He’s also genuinely coming to see the attraction of this sort of in-the-field venture. He can’t get over it: how they invented that spell together almost in an instant, how the pressure of the moment focussed their efforts into brilliance. He has never accomplished so much so quickly; and now, sharing notes in the open air, in the shade of tall palms at the edge of the beach, the waves lapping the shore like a breath in his ear, he feels … free.

“Is this enough shade?” Caleb says.

Essek smiles and taps the arm of his tinted spectacles. “I’m fine,” he says. He cannot believe it took him three days after turning out his bag onto the deck of the Ball Eater to register that he had packed these, discreetly pilfered from his brother’s room three years prior. Much as he’s embarrassed it took him this long to remember they were there, the relief from the harsh sun is delightful.

“Those suit you.” Caleb smiles and puts a finger to Essek’s cheek. “Ah, before I forget.” He pulls a folded parchment from his book and hands it to Essek.

Essek takes the page and unfolds it to find … a note from Veth.

_Boys._

_When you two eventually get to the point of naming this spell, I don’t want to have my name left off just for being the least experienced magic user. So, owing to that fact, I have provided you both with a list of possible names:_

_Brenatto’s Anti-Water Sphere  
Brenatto’s Barrier Sphere  
Brenatto’s Orb of Shielding  
Brenatto’s Big Nope  
Brenatto & Widogast’s Defensive Globe_

_I guess we could also use Brenatto, Widogast, and Thelyss in the title if we needed to.  
  
Essek, make sure Caleb doesn’t go off and name this one Widogast’s New Spell. He’s developing a habit now._

_I look forward to seeing the end results!  
-Veth_

_P.S. don’t forget to eat some lunch!_

“I think,” Caleb says, “she was a little ticked that I didn’t put her name in the Transmogrification spell.” He frowns. “I do feel a little bad honestly. It was truly a collaboration. I’m afraid I didn’t credit you either.”

Essek puts up a hand. “I’m fine. It’s …” he mentally searches for the right phrase. “It isn’t the custom within dunamancy.” 

In fact, it’s considered the sort of horribly gauche, boastful thing you can expect of short-lived human arcanists, who come from nowhere and feel compelled to name everything after themselves, rather than letting their renown enhance that of the Den. Now that Essek looks again at that idea, out here in the harsh sunlight a world away from the Lucid Bastion, the sentiment seems a little ugly. 

“Well,” Caleb says, “I have no den.” Essek blinks; he didn’t voice that thought, but Caleb is replying almost as if he did. Caleb squeezes his hand. “Just this family here. And I suppose I am a little proud. I’ve done some good things with this name.”

Essek looks down at their clasped hands. He was there when Caleb spoke his birth name aloud to that scourger. He has no idea if Caleb is aware he understood every word of that conversation in Zemnian. At the time, a discreet casting of Comprehend Languages had seemed like a standard caution when dealing with a foreign prisoner. Now, like his early scrying, it feels like yet another betrayal of trust.

Essek looks up. “I think you should be proud, Caleb. You’ve accomplished so much already. You’ve made history … and you’ve only just begun.” 

“Perhaps one day, both our names might find their way into history for our achievements.”

The burst of shame is so sharp and overwhelming that Essek cannot hold eye contact. To make history is what he always wanted, after all: and it has led him to such harm and idiocy, a stain of consequence that continues to spread and ruin, while achieving nothing worthwhile at all. At this point, Essek’s name is as likely to find its way into history for his sins. 

Caleb squeezes Essek’s hand. When Essek looks back at him, he is looking out over the water as it breaks gently against the rocks.

“Not today,” Caleb says, turning back to him, “but perhaps another time in the future when our open projects are resolved, would you help me with a bit of research?”

“Of course.”

“It’s for a project concerning Veth, actually. I would like to see whether it would be possible to create a pair of Sending Stones for her.”

“I don’t know much about such things at present,” Essek starts, “but I have seen them once before. If I recall, they are one of many artifacts of the Age of Arcanum.”

“I have one in my possession, though I do not have its brother. I suspect it may be beyond my capabilities to replicate the enchantment, but I would like to do more exhaustive research before coming to such a conclusion. I know it would mean a lot to her to have the tools to stay in touch with everyone when she is away.”

Who is meant to have the matching stone, Essek wonders. Her husband? No, perhaps it’s meant for Caleb. Veth was frantic to reunite with her husband and son, and to restore her own body. Now she has done that, will she be going home? He opens his mouth to ask—then he catches the downcast, melancholic look in Caleb’s eyes. They’re close. He wonders what hard times they went through together; what it might mean for Caleb if she left this group.

“When you are ready to resume that research, I would be very interested to take part.”

Caleb turns to him and offers half a smile. This private time has begun on entirely the wrong foot, Essek thinks. Especially after the heat of yesterday’s studying. He _could_ copy more of the Transmogrification spell—he has several more hours in order to complete that—but he feels instead that it would be a better use of their time now to work on something more stimulating for Caleb.

“While I’ve made good progress transcribing,” Essek says, “I confess I am also eager to pool our thoughts about the mechanics of our new creation. Before _my_ memory fades, at least.”

Caleb chuckles. “I would like that, very much.”

Essek turns open his spellbook to the note section in the back. He quiets the voice in his head that reminds him he has delayed his return to the Dynasty in order to obtain the spell he has now deliberately put off copying. Never mind that he dedicated another full day to helping the Mighty Nein set up a campsite for two hundred cultists. 

“One of the first things I was thinking over was the material component. I think iron is definitely the choice for this spell, but in practice it was difficult for me to maintain the full sphere as the filings were consumed. I believe a solid shape might, in fact, be more effective.”

Caleb scratches his chin. “Perhaps it’s too on the nose, but an iron ball or perhaps even a ring might be something to consider?”

“There might be something to that.” Essek absently fingers the heavy amulet at his collarbone as he considers which forms of iron to test next. “I also think a fifth level evocation was not quite strong enough to maintain the barrier.”

Caleb lightly touches the chain of the pendant Essek wears, and his finger brushes the skin of Essek’s throat. At this distance, the runes on the back of the opal can be seen. _Nothing escapes your notice_ , Essek nearly says, and then just in time he realises, nothing with the exception of his own treachery. 

“It isn’t new,” Essek says. “My work has often required a little bit of discretion to my movements. It’s not suspicious for me to have arcane means of avoiding scrying and the like.” He’s explaining too much. He hates the matters this touches upon. Does he glimpse a cautious unease in Caleb’s eyes, or does he just fear it? “Perhaps I should have said something. Beauregard did ask if I might be tracked to you.”

“It’s an elegant design,” Caleb says. “I keep saying things suit you. Everything seems to suit you.” He half-grins and kisses Essek lightly on the lips. Then he drops eye contact and draws in a breath. “Have your people asked after you? You’re running a little late for your return.” 

“It’s fine,” Essek says. “No one has even—“ He stops himself in the automatic lie. “A few people have been in touch. Nothing too burdensome.”

“Is this trip putting you to risk?” 

Essek shakes his head. “Nothing I can’t handle. The usual unnecessary queries from people who are perfectly capable of solving problems themselves, but would prefer me to do so. It’s not unknown for me to take time away. I’ve made a point of it; otherwise, I’d never get any research done at all.” Usually he’s sequestered in his towers though, he reminds himself. No. It’s fine. “Come,” Essek says, “let’s make the most of this time.”

Caleb turns back to his notes, but the tension does not quite leave his furrowed brows. 

_____________________

  


_____________________

  


Essek isn’t sure exactly when the spellwork stopped and the current activities began. They’d completed the notes for the Force Barricade, which had been elating, and now Essek is in Caleb’s lap—and they are no longer discussing the possibilities of the arcane.

Essek presses his hips forward as Caleb’s hand moves up his back. Essek kisses down his neck, tugs open the collar of Caleb’s shirt to press his lips to the skin there, flushed and tender already. Caleb tilts his neck to give him more access, and his long hair falls from its tie, draping over Essek’s face. He absently runs a hand through it, then pushes it behind Caleb’s shoulder; Essek’s own hair tugs gently and—

Wait. Wait just a minute…

Essek pulls back from Caleb. Essek’s hand is full of flowing, ginger hair. Caleb’s hair is still mostly tied in a low queue; Caleb is making a curious face. Essek touches his hands to his scalp and finds something is wrong. Very wrong.

Caleb reaches one hand forward and tentatively touches the mane of ginger currently sprouting from Essek’s own scalp.

“It’s not an illusion,” Caleb mutters. “So that narrows the list of culprits.”

“Culprits?” 

Essek’s mind is reeling. He has never grown out his hair before, quite purposefully. The old ways may still be observed by many, but as soon as Essek had been old enough, he had always made a point of keeping his hair short and well-styled. Still, long hair could be cut again—but this _color_ is just so, so wrong for him. Without thinking, he casts Disguise Self to right his appearance; but he can still _feel_ the long tresses weighing him down, and he knows they’re there. He _knows_ they’re red. Essek takes a deep breath in through his nostrils and holds it, forces his face to something less rattled. 

Caleb presses his forehead against Essek’s and whispers, “You didn’t give me much time to appreciate your new look.” He runs his fingers over the now invisible hair, ignoring the illusion.

“Well, I’d hoped for a more dramatic response, but this has truthfully been underwhelming.”

Sitting on the beach, pressed against Caleb, with his head rested on Caleb’s shoulder, is the archfey: The Traveler, as the Nein have taken to calling him. 

“When Jester told me you two had snuck off I simply _had_ to check in on you. I can’t have my guests bored, now, can I?”

The Traveler sits back on his hands, leaning away from Caleb as he takes in Essek’s appearance. Essek fights the urge to straighten his vest as he maintains hard eye contact. He needs to appear unruffled by this intrusion. He has the distinct feeling that the Traveler can see through his illusion, and it does nothing to quiet Essek’s internal screaming. 

“So,” the Traveler drawls, “while I have you here, could I bother you for an honest opinion?”

“Of course,” Caleb says. Essek clenches his jaw.

“What did you think of the amphitheatre? Did it seem like a stage to you? Because while I understand the need for drama, there’s just something so … ugh, I can’t even say it.”

“Would it help if it were more of a cathedral?”

“Cathedral?” The Traveler scratches his chin in a theatrical way. 

“Well,” Caleb continues, “seeing as this event is for your religious following, the space is more for religious services than for a performance.”

“Hmm.” The Traveler hooks a finger under his chin and narrows his eyes like a cat. “Perhaps I should raise a couple of arches. Or a statue? Or do you think that would be too much?”

“An impression of spiritual grandeur would seem to be the thing,” Caleb says. He’s addressing an archfey as if he was talking to anyone. Essek has seen Caleb and the others in front of the Bright Queen; it’s not that he expected them to be great observers of protocol, but there’s familiarity, and then there is putting one’s head into the udaak’s mouth. 

Suddenly, Essek has the horrible suspicion that none of the Nein are fully aware of what an archfey is. 

“Don’t you like it?” the Traveler says, suddenly looking Essek directly in the eye. Essek is almost certain he visibly twitches. 

“Do I like the cathedral? It has a certain appeal in how it was built of the local flora.”

“You don’t like it,” the Traveler says, collapsing onto the ground as though he is melting. He flops the back of one hand against his forehead and sighs, deeply.

Today’s preparations—inasmuch as anything regarding this event can be described as prepared—had mostly been led by Jester as the Traveler popped in and out, largely interacting with his cleric. Interfacing with the Traveler without Jester is an entirely new level of surreal.

“I, uh, I confess I was never much of a religious man.”

The archfey sits bolt upright and looks Essek in the eye. Essek freezes. _Don’t drop eye contact. Don’t agree to any deals. Don’t offend him._ The Traveler leans in, and against Essek’s ear, whispers, “Good idea. Religion is bullshit.” 

How does he play this? Is there even a way to amend this—hair incident—without putting himself in this being’s debt?

“Artagan,” Caleb says. “Could you please restore Essek’s usual hair? You’re making him uncomfortable.”

“Perhaps,” the archfey says, spreading his arms, “he’s just uncomfortable because he has a realistic idea of my power … the majesty … the immortal presence, the deepest origin of all elfkind…”

Essek feels like every extremity he has wants to twitch simultaneously. He tries to pretend to himself he is turning to stone. 

Caleb _rolls his eyes_. “You know,” he says, “you’d get a far better reaction out of Beauregard. If I were you, I would restore Essek and go to conscript her into the ginger nation.”

Artagan, the Traveler, sighs deeply then exhales, blowing a raspberry. “ _Oh, fine._ What kind of better reaction?”

“There will be yelling,” Caleb says. “Shouting, violence, that sort of thing.”

“Ooooh,” Artagan says. Then he’s gone. 

Nervously, Essek runs a hand through his hair, brings a strand down in front of his nose. Short, white. Ah. Thank goodness. He feels as though he has aged five decades in the last ten minutes. 

Caleb runs his hand through Essek’s hair, then gently pulls Essek forward to kiss him on the forehead. “I suppose it’s time we packed our things and rejoined the group for the evening.”

In the distance, Beauregard’s swearing is unmistakable as it echoes over the jungle canopy.

  


_____________________

Another day has passed, and somehow each day with the archfey seems simultaneously more bizarre and yet more familiar. Perhaps Essek is acclimatising. It was an oddly exhilarating afternoon once the Traveler opened a path for a few of them to step between and, in disguise, acquire some food staples from Port Damali in order to feed his impending guests. Jester, who has long confused Essek, is beginning to make sense the more he sees of her and her patron together. Essek should really complete his transcription of the Transmogrification spell, but he is tired, sore, and caked in sweat, and the Traveler has found for them a hot spring.

Caleb strips himself naked along with everyone else, laughing with the Traveler at a joke from Fjord as he removes his last sock. He seems so utterly unconcerned about it all. He’s been washing in the sea with most of the rest every day since they arrived, while Essek and Veth hung back to take turns with soap and a bowl of fresh water behind the rocks. 

Essek is aware that he’s seen Caleb like this once before, back at their house in the Dynasty. It had been distracting, sure, but that night had been full of wine and the adrenaline high of sharing his honest self with other people: being _seen_ , even if he himself had remained fully dressed. It hadn’t seemed a real possibility then, that he might actually be in a position of intimacy with this man.

Now, Essek finds the need to be respectful is competing with other, more lewd thoughts, as he catches glimpses of Caleb’s long, lean body, pale pink and bared. He thinks of the wiry muscles of Caleb’s back and shoulders under his hands yesterday. Despite his jokes about weakness, Caleb has lean muscle and stamina that speaks of years of hard marching alongside his studies. The skin of his neck and shoulders is still soft and smooth, though, and peppered with red-brown freckles. How Essek would like to kiss his way down Caleb’s bare chest, to taste the seawater on his skin and follow the trail of ginger hair down past his navel—

Oh, hell. Stop.

It helps somewhat when they all begin to dip into the steamy water, which brings a modicum of privacy. Essek has removed his undershirt and boots. He might not be ready for public nakedness, but this seems enough to allay any teasing. He hopes. 

As he sinks thankfully into the water, he catches Caleb’s eye. Caleb is staring. It tugs a smile from Essek’s lips. Beauregard is waggling her eyebrows and instantly the reality of this situation of intimate non-privacy crashes around him again.

“Caleb!” Jester calls. “Can you make the pretty lights again?”

Caleb’s eyes flick over to Jester; then his gaze connects with Essek once again as he casts Dancing Lights around them. Out of the corner of his eye, Essek notices the Traveler, Artagan, wave his arm above the water. Behind his long fingers is a trail of soft glowing lights, and as the tiny dots gently begin to flit about Essek realises they are small lightning bugs in varying shades of pastel color. It’s beautiful, in that exaggerated way most fey things are. 

“That’s nice,” Caduceus says admiringly as he lowers his long limbs into the water and settles himself into the rocks, his staff easily within his reach. 

“So, Brenatto’s Force Barricade,” Veth says, stretching her toes in the water from the shore. “I like it. Does this make me a gravity—”, she frowns, “gravi-turgian? Graviturgist?”

“Traditionally, such a title is reserved for those who practice within that particular arcane branch,” Essek says automatically. He can hear the voice of his earliest tutor flatly repeating such phrases time and time again.

“Perhaps an honorary one, then,” Caleb offers.

“That’s fine by me,” Veth says cheerily. Essek finds he cannot discern her level of sincerity, but the moment has passed. She’s laughing with Jester, and all seems well enough.

Beauregard props her elbows on the rock behind her, leaning back against it like a bench seat. “This … we need to do more of this. Back when I was younger, we used to sneak out toward the mountains for the springs there.”

“I’m coming to be quite a fan of them myself,” Fjord says as he lets down his hair. “Hot baths indoors, too.”

Essek closes his eyes and inhales the mineral-rich steam. “I admit this is a highlight of the trip thus far.”

“I bet you have some _huge_ tub back in Rosohna, don’t you?” Veth asks. He doesn’t even begrudge her the judging tone.

“I do. I regret not using it more.”

Jester pokes the Traveler’s arm with her index finger. “So how did you even know this was here?”

“I know _everything_ ,” he drawls, his face splitting into a devious grin. “But actually, I was bored of watching everyone move supplies ashore and I thought I’d look more into the volcano. You know,” he motions with his hand to the group, “to determine the best places to gather followers, should I wish to start over with a clean slate.”

Jester scoffs. “I thought we agreed no volcano this time, though? Since I’m here?”

“Wait, _volcano_?” Veth demands. “What do you mean ‘no volcano’?”

The Traveler turns to Jester and takes her hands into his own. “I mean, of _course_ , I would ensure your safety first, my dear, but it seemed something worth looking into. Besides!” He lets go of her hands to spread his arms wide. “My endeavor led to all of us spending an enjoyable evening together here in the very height of luxurious indulgence. I’ve even found us some wine!”

With a flick of his wrist, Artagan summons several wine bottles as well as accompanying goblets. Caduceus rises from the water without a word. 

“So,” Veth says, “just to be clear: we’re going to ignore the fact that we are on a _volcanic island_ at the base of a _volcano_ , where a trickster not-god has a passing interest in said volcano?” 

She looks around to the ground as Beauregard and Yasha distribute the goblets and wine. Caduceus returns to the spring with a bottle of his own. Essek looks to Caleb, who offers the least comforting casual shrug a man could offer. The longer they are on this island, the more disquiet and horror seeps into Essek's very bones; and yet, it seems these feelings are restricted to him. There is doubt among the Nein, sure, but on the whole they seem entirely unthreatened by everything that has happened thus far. 

A goblet full of what smells like a good plum wine is handed to Essek. He swirls it automatically in the glass; it looks full-bodied and rich. He sighs and takes a healthy sip. 

“Okay, I guess we’re cool with it,” Veth says, seemingly placated by the silence. She takes a goblet that Caduceus has filled himself; Essek wonders what home-made concoction the firbolg has brought along this time. 

Caduceus offers the bottle to the group. “I’ve got some fermented tea I’ve been working on, if anyone else would like some.” Jester gladly accepts the offer. 

“Should we be so relaxed, though?” Fjord asks. “I mean, in the end it’s my problem, but…” 

Caleb answers him. “As we’ve said, Fjord, we are here for you.” 

Artagan jerks his thumb toward Fjord. “Is he talking about his ‘Patron Problem’? Because while I have _no_ intention of intervening in other people’s affairs, I certainly don’t want anyone interfering in mine. No one’s getting near this island without my knowing about it.” 

“See?” Jester chirps. “Artagan is the best!” 

Beauregard furrows her brow and waves her hand in Artagan’s direction. “Well, I mean, he says that he’ll _know_ if someone’s trying to come here, but will he stop them?” 

“I believe I said it was none of my business? I can guarantee no surprises and nothing more.” 

“Well, I mean,” Jester pauses to bite her lip, “there will be _surprises_.” 

Artagan scoffs. “Of _course_ there will be.” 

“Not the bad kind though, don’t worry, guys.” 

Jester and Artagan lock eyes, then break out into full-bellied laughs as they share an unspoken joke between them. Beauregard is glaring at Artagan as though she could disintegrate him with her mind alone. 

“Well,” Caduceus says, “we worked hard today, and we have a beautiful spring to enjoy. Let’s spend the time in peace ... while it lasts.” 

The words unspoken linger in Essek’s mind: the false peace bought with Beacons returned; the delicate balance he’s maintained between the Cerberus Assembly and the Dynasty, both now poised to cut their ends of the thread connecting him; even the Mighty Nein. All of this could break in the smallest moment. 

Fjord raises his goblet in a toast. “To our continued journey.” 

Everyone raises their own glass and takes a quiet sip. 

“Okay, I know what to do,” Beauregard says. “Let’s play a game.” 

Artagan raises a magnificent eyebrow and asks, “What did you have in mind?” 

Beauregard gives Artagan a look as she addresses the group. “Well, we have some wine. We’re all naked in a hot spring. Most of us are naked. Let’s see what more we can learn about each other.” 

“Oh, I don’t know how good I am at sharing,” Yasha says. She has her sword sat next to her in the water. Essek isn’t sure he’s qualified to speculate on whether such a thing is considered proper weapon-keeping, but it feels like it isn’t. He says nothing and averts his eyes, instead. 

Beauregard shakes her head. “Nah, it’s easy. I’ll start us off: never have I ever stolen something as a prank.” She holds up her goblet. “If you’ve stolen something for a prank, take a sip now.” 

She sips, as does the entire group. 

Essek has a brief flash of memory of hiding his childhood religious studies tutor’s spectacles, every day for a month. The Umavi had forbidden him from talking during lessons in an effort to curb his insolence and deliberately awkward questions; spite had been all that was left to him. It was satisfying as much as vengeful childhood pranks could be, he supposes. 

He takes a sip of wine. It’s utterly delicious, the sort of fine aged vintage that his family brings out at celebrations and when trying to make a point to guests, and for that very reason, the sort that Essek himself likes to open for no reason at all. The honeyed citrus of each sip gives way to complex, spicy fruits balanced with a pleasant tartness. He has no idea where Artagan got this stuff, and he’s not going to ask, but he has to admit that the archfey has an excellent palate. He imagines that’s what comes of an immortal life with what seems to be absolutely no responsibility. 

Beauregard gestures to Fjord next to her. “Okay, now you make a statement, and if we’ve done the thing, we take a drink.” 

Fjord scratches his growing beard and looks down at the water for a moment. “All right: never have I ever lied about something to avoid embarrassment, but ended up being caught anyway?” 

Fjord takes a sip from his cup, as does most of the group. Essek drinks again. Artagan empties his entire glass and refills it. Essek is very certain the archfey wants them all to ask. He feels a certain petty satisfaction that no one does. 

“Okay, okay, okay.” Jester’s tail swishes above the water as she ponders her turn. “Never have I ever … been sneaky so that my momma or whoever wouldn’t know what I was up to.” 

Essek fails to repress the laugh that bubbles out of him, and he takes a deep sip. Oh, the things he has hidden from his mother over the decades. She would have his head if she knew the half of it, literally. 

“Hey, Essek.” Beauregard is pointing at him with her goblet in hand. “What was that grin? You’ve got a story: spill it.” 

“Was it the Bright Queen?” Veth asks. “Who were you duping? Was it _me_? Oh my god, it was _me_!” 

“Aside from my obvious past transgressions involving the transfer of the beacons and hiding my involvement, no, I was not duping you, Veth.” 

“So why the laugh and the giant swig, huh?” Beauregard has that hungry look again, the one she wears when she’s on the hunt for information. He chances a look at Caleb, who is watching him now with a carefully interested look. 

“Well, the question referenced hiding things from our mothers, and ... I used to be quite the sneak when I was under Dierta’s roof.” 

Jester perks up. “Ooooo, what kind of sneak, Essek?” 

Artagan is leaning forward with his chin resting in his hands. “I admit I’m curious about this one; he’s so humorless.” 

“Well…” 

Once Essek begins, he realises that speaking of this means explaining something of the private culture of the noble Dens, which are a world apart even within the Dynasty itself. Essek was always encouraged not to share matters which outsiders would not understand. Perhaps that is why he so often persists in doing exactly that. 

“Piety is very important in the Dens,” he says, “or at least the display of it. There are certain domestic hours that are to be devoted to religious study and contemplation of the Luxon, and so on.” He spreads his hands and tries to resist a full eye-roll. “I had no interest in religion, so when I was a child I began to switch book jackets so that the cover of my Luxon primer was on whichever book I wanted to read instead.” 

Veth tilts her head and asks, “like, forbidden books?” There are general chuckles. 

“Whatever I could get my hands on,” Essek says. “Adult chronurgy and graviturgy textbooks, histories of the arcane, foreign scholars.” 

“Wait,” Jester says, “so it wasn’t porn? Who hides Not Porn?” 

“So was it like, nerd porn?” Veth asks. 

“It was thrilling getting away with it,” Essek says. Somehow, this isn’t coming across. He was right; the shocking insolence and impiety of his deception does not translate _at all_ to the world outside the Dens. 

“Wow,” Beauregard says with rather more sarcasm than necessary, “who could have guessed that Essek’s life as a traitor began with such scandal?” 

Essek narrows his eyes and says, with an excessive level of bravado: “It wasn’t only reading and academia. I once, while underage, snuck out to attend a bar in the _Corona_ district." 

“Holy shit, man: a _bar_.” Her tone is flat and patronizing; she sits more forward as though to crowd Essek’s space. “I got into bar fights, and then my girlfriend and I bootlegged my dad’s wine.” 

This is now a test of sorts, and one which Essek does not fully understand its parameters. He knows he can’t back down now, though, or he will have failed. He takes another sip of wine without breaking eye contact, and she mirrors the move. 

“As I said, it wasn’t always books,” Essek adds. “I once wore a top that showed my wrists to a formal dinner.” Beauregard barks out a single laugh. “I deliberately put my foot on the grass in the formal gardens in front of the Umavi.” She raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. “I went to a barracks dorm with an infantry cadet and got caught in the act.” 

Beauragard nods. “Okay ... you can have that one.” She lifts her glass and drinks. 

Jester chimes in. “I locked one of my mom’s clients on a balcony naked and had to leave the city so I wouldn’t be killed.” 

“I played truth or dare once,” Veth says. 

“So did I?” Caduceus says with a greatly confused expression. “Do I still take a drink for that?” 

“Once at the Academy,” Caleb says quietly, “we snuck out of the dorms and went into the city. We went to an underground fighting ring, and my classmates placed illegal bets.” 

“You didn’t bet?” Fjord asks him. 

“No, I used my paltry funds for some new fiction.” He locks eyes with Essek and smiles. “They had a dismally curated collection of fiction at the academy, and I think it’s important to explore all books.” 

Artagan sighs dramatically. “Of _course_ it was books.” 

“Well, before we all share _too_ much of our past embarrassments,” Caleb starts, “earlier today Essek and I were discussing the utility of a dunamantic echo and how we might expand upon it.” Caleb is blushing, but smiles warmly when his eyes land on Essek. 

“Oh,” says Beauregard, a worrying grin spreading across her face. “So _that’s_ what you’ve been discussing when you sneak off.” 

“Well,” Veth says, “Now they’ve gotten done with _my_ spell, I guess they’ll have to work on something else now.” 

“I’m sure they’ll find ways to keep busy,” Yasha says. 

“Okay,” Jester says, “so what actual amount of the time would you say you guys are actually studying when you go to study? And what amount are you just making out? Like can you give us a percentage, or something?” 

“Or even a ratio,” Veth says. “Like, five parts smooching to one part studying.” 

Essek flicks a discreet glance at Caleb, and finds that he is blushing more intensely, and gradually shrinking down further into the water. Essek focuses on maintaining a poker face. He has a feeling that they’ll be like his little brother, Verin, in this regard: if he gives them a reaction, they’ll never stop. 

“ _Veth. Jester_ ,” Fjord says as he shakes his head and gestures questioningly with one hand. “We all need our private time now and again.” 

Veth waves him off, but the teasing does stop. 

“Jester?” Caleb asks. He’s stopped shrinking down. “We actually had some questions regarding your duplicate if you might be willing to answer them for us?” 

“Oh yes, of course!” 

“It’s illusion magic,” Artagan chimes in. He’s leaning back next to Jester, arms spread and head pillowed on a rock, his implausible masses of red hair spreading out under the water. “None of that playing with time and potentiality. Tweaking time is _such_ a ballache.” 

Essek has a momentary, horrible desire to seize Artagan by the shoulders and ask him—this ancient, immortal being!—everything he knows about chronurgy, the Beacons, the arcane harnessing of time and potentiality. He is categorically not going to do that. He knows better. He’s nearly certain he knows better. 

Jester waves a hand, and from the water a few feet in front of her, another Jester appears. She’s stark naked, but with curling ribbons of opaque, illusory steam barely covering the most relevant parts. The duplicate twirls on the surface, tail extended, and does a little shimmy. Then she sticks her tongue out. Beauregard coughs and sputters into the crook of her elbow, turning to face slightly away from the group. 

“So,” Jester says sweetly, “what was it you wanted to know?” 

“Well,” Caleb says, “we were interested specifically in how you can cast from the duplicate’s space? She can cast more than one spell, which is something I would be interested in _duplicating_ via arcane means, if we can.” 

Jester giggles at the pun, then nudges the fey next to her. “Traveler? I mean Artagan? You could give them power to do it, right?” 

“I mean I _could_ ,” Artagan says. He’s holding one arm up out of the water and distractedly watching the water rivulets run down his bare skin. “But they’d have to be official followers of mine.” 

“I think Caleb and I will be fine by our usual means.” Essek has done many foolish and risky things in the name of academic advancement, but he is absolutely _not_ wishing to tie himself to some otherworldly being to do so. 

“Research and experimentation is all part of the fun,” Caleb says. 

“It is definitely fun to experiment with a partner,” Yasha adds. 

The illusory Jester sits down in the hot spring on the other side of Caduceus, sandwiching the firbolg in blue tiefling. 

“It’s quite interesting to me that your illusion is both a mirror image of yourself that moves independently to you and _also_ is able to cast spells.” Essek says, trying to focus on duplicate Jester’s face. It winks at him. “It is quite the arcane achievement.” 

“The dunamantic echo certainly has its versatility,” Caleb says. “But there is no denying that it is a shadow of potentiality, something other than myself. There is the Mirror Image spell, but of course that is just a mimicry, a diversion.” 

Jester and her duplicate are now playing a clapping game with Caduceus, though the duplicate is completely silent. It’s one of the only ways to differentiate her from the real Jester. 

“It would be interesting to see whether we could incorporate some Illusion magic into the Resonant Echo,” Essek mutters. “It would certainly blend in better outside of the Dynasty.” 

“That’s a fair point,” Caleb says as he pushes back the wet strands of hair that are sticking to his cheek. 

“So what can your shadow even _do_?” Jester asks. “Okay, okay so if you make an echo, right, and it lasts for I dunno, a while … could you two like hang out with each other? _Wait_ , can you guys _do it_?” 

Essek shakes his head. Did she really just ask what he thought she’d asked? “Jester, are you asking whether one can have sex with an echo cast through Resonant Echo?” 

“Basically, yeah! Can you?” 

Beauregard sits forward and props her elbows on her knees. “Yeah, can you?” Fjord sighs and she turns her attention to the half-orc. “What? It’s a good question! Jester deserves an answer.” 

“I can safely say,” Essek says, “that I have never had the slightest interest in finding out the answer to that question.” 

“I mean, if you couldn't get laid, it might've been something you researched, right?” Beauregard is grinning wide as though she has won this exchange, but Essek knows better. 

“And as mentioned, Beauregard, that has _never_ been a problem for me.” 

“Well, I feel like we learned a lot about some of us today,” Yasha says quietly. She takes a long drink without waiting for a reply. 

“Hey, Essek? You’re not half bad,” Beauregard says, raising her glass to toast. 

He raises his glass in response, then glances at Caleb, who raises his glass as well. Essek hopes this juvenile repartee hasn’t soured Caleb’s impression of him, though the more Essek comes to learn of this group, the more it seems they appreciate that very sort of thing. 

“But what if it was Caleb’s echo?” Jester asks. “Oooo, what if it _both_ your echoes made out with each other?” 

Essek has definitely had sexy thoughts of late, but not a single one has involved his or Caleb’s echo. Caleb himself, however... 

  


  


_____________________

_Shadowhand, your continuing absence raises increasingly troubling questions for her majesty. If you value your life and position: return and prostrate yourself immediately … Light be—_

Essek inhales sharply as he recognises the Dusk Captain’s voice, her tone wincingly edged with threat. So: it’s happened. 

His legs move him automatically as the group walks on through the trees, tired and relaxed from their long soak in the spring. His ears ring. 

Essek has just received the very Sending he has both anticipated and dreaded. The Sending that calls into question his current loyalties, that demands he choose a defined path instead of walking between them in shadow. The Sending that will be answered not by words, but whether those words come at all. He’s been a fool to think he could keep avoiding this, that he would somehow have resolved himself to return before it came to this.

For a moment, he feels as though he cannot breathe. No, he will compose himself. Essek squeezes Caleb’s hand, then releases it. Caleb pauses, gives him a concerned look. Essek smiles and waves him onward. For a moment, it looks like Caleb will protest—but then he smiles back and moves ahead. Essek touches one hand to his temple as he leans against a slick tree trunk; he struggles to regain control of his breath.

For as long as he can remember, Essek has always skirted the line between approved high-society behavior and his own desires, and much as he has secured for himself a certain acceptable quirkiness, he was always perilously close to the line. Now he has finally stepped far over it, publicly and severely. He could return in an instant, beg forgiveness, behave as the Bright Queen’s lap dog until such a time they deemed him appropriately trained. Perhaps, not even this would save him now. 

The Bright Queen grows paranoid these days, but her impression of him is not wrong. He is guilty of the highest treason, and the more investigative scrutiny he attracts, the more likely it is that someone will uncover enough to damn him. It could have happened already; or perhaps he is catastrophizing, and this warning really does offer him one last chance to become an obedient servant of the Light. That thought is almost as alarming as discovery; it drives his pulse to pounding in his temples.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Caduceus says, stopping as he passes. 

Essek shakes himself from his stupor and starts walking again. In a way, the cleric is spot on.

“This hasn’t been an easy time for you to be away, has it?” Caduceus says.

Essek is looking fixedly ahead of himself, but even without eye contact with Caduceus, he can _feel_ that piercing gaze of his, the one that makes Essek feel like a naughty child. Except, perhaps, he is a bit of a naughty child. He should say something, but the spell is still tingling in his mind, holding on for his reply. 

“If there’s something we should know, you should tell us. If it’s something Caleb should know…” Caduceus lets the words hang in the air as they walk on. 

The Sending spell releases. Essek exhales a shaky breath. 

“There is much I need to tell Caleb,” he answers finally. 

“But it’s not easy,” Caduceus says. “That’s understandable. It’s uncomfortable, being vulnerable. It’s important, though.”

“I suppose you are right.”

As they reach the clearing where sleeping quarters had been magically erected earlier today, Essek pauses. Jester and her fey have seen to construct a large floral hut for the “high priests of the Traveler”, otherwise known as the Mighty Nein, but it seems they have also constructed a number of smaller quarters in concentric rings emanating from the largest at the center. So far, the group has continued to sleep together under the protection of the arcane hut Caleb conjures, but Artagan had promised up and down that they would be safe on this island while he was there; and he has shown all intentions of spending time with his cleric and her companions, beginning with the event planning of the day, straight through their hot spring soak, and ending, it seems, with a sleepover event that hints at very little sleeping. 

“Caleb,” he asks, tugging on Caleb’s hand and pulling him from the group.

“Yes?” Caleb’s eyes are questioning. 

“Would it be too forward of me to ask you to spend the night with me in our own—well,” he gestures at the huts built of branches and flowers, "whatever these are?”

Caleb grins at him, wide and delighted. Essek’s heart pangs painfully. “Not too forward at all.” He catches Essek round the waist and leans in. “I was thinking the same thing.” 

Essek manages a grin. His choices again are awful. Deceive Caleb about the Sending, or let the truth burst in upon his happiness. Essek’s situation has not truly changed, if he’s honest. He was just denying to himself how much trouble he was in. 

“Are you all right?” Caleb says. “What’s going on here?” He taps Essek’s forehead. 

Essek tries for a convincing smile. “I’m fine, just a little light-headed from the hot spring.”

They’ll need to have this conversation at some point … but not now, not right now. For once, Essek would like to reap the rewards of his many risks before they are ripped from his grasp forever.

  


_____________________


	2. Chapter 2

Fjord flops back onto the log he’s been leaning against and rests his empty bowl over his stomach. “This really hit the spot. Thanks, Caduceus.”

“It wasn’t only me.” Caduceus gestures with his own bowl. “Jester was a big help.”

“Artagan helped too! It was fun.”

“He was definitely there,” Caduceus says, more flatly than usual.

Essek looks down, trying to master the grin that quirks up the corners of his mouth—and it is then, of course, that the Sending strikes into his mind, as sudden and brutal as a box on the ear. 

_Essek Thelyss, your silence disrespects your den, your nation, and your queen. Present yourself._

Essek pauses with the glass mid-way to his lips, a false smile freezing on his face. Of course it is that moment that the archfey, reclined on a log, sends his gaze around the group and lights upon Essek. Essek consciously relaxes every muscle in his face, takes a sip of wine, and stares coolly into the sparks rising from the campfire. He sets his goblet down upon the ground. He’s almost certain that the shaking of his hands is not visible. Almost.

The Sending releases almost mercifully fast; the Bright Queen is not seeking a reply. 

The implication of this is clear: only his immediate appearance in person can now lighten the severe consequences of his absconding at a crucial political moment. His stubborn silence at Sending after Sending—there were several others after the Dusk Captain’s warning—even from representatives of the Bright Queen herself. He holds secrets of national security in trust; if he defects from the realm, even if no one suspects how much he has truly bargained away, he takes these with him. Of course this was the direct and predictable consequence of his previous silences. 

The Bright Queen’s voice still rings in his head. 

Jester is telling a rambling story, waving the stick upon which her fish was grilled. Around the fire, the mood is mellow, warm and sleepy. Fjord stifles a yawn. Yasha is plucking a slow, simple tune on her horrific harp. 

Somewhere, all those miles away in Rosohna, Essek’s life is collapsing. Seated as he is around the campfire with the Mighty Nein’s laughter and murmured voices, it seems almost unreal. If he chose, he could be kneeling in front of the Bright Queen in an instant. He’s stunned at himself letting this play out. 

Caleb, across the campfire, catches his eye. He grins at Essek in that slightly lop-sided way he seems to get when he’s in a certain mood. Caleb inclines his head, away from their circle of friends. It’s a suggestion. Essek smiles, fractionally nods. 

Caleb does not even seem to have noticed the latest stage of this personal apocalypse in progress. It’s a relief. At least he, _they_ , can have this moment. 

“Well,” Caleb says, getting up. “It’s late. We are going to turn in.” Essek brushes down his trousers and stands up as well. 

Around the fire, there’s a predictable chorus of whistles and whoops. Most of it is from Jester, Veth and Beauregard, but they certainly have a way of sounding like a crowd. 

“Have fun, boys!” Veth calls.

Caleb takes Essek’s hand, and they pick their way through the clearing in the soft and pleasant moonlight. Essek wants to bury himself in this moment entirely. It’s a cloudless night, the stars displaying themselves in glittering clarity. Caleb stops at a densely woven flower-tent towards the outer rings. 

“Here,” he whispers. “Fjord and Caduceus have promised to stop any pranking before it starts.” 

He holds aside a curtain of vines for Essek to enter. Essek holds back a laugh as he walks through. This may be the most ridiculous location for a tryst he’s ever known, not to mention the most charming. 

Inside, Caleb sends up a string of warm amber Dancing Lights to hang in the air above them. The structure feels remarkably spacious. The woven walls of branch and leaf let the evening breeze flow through. Jasmine flowers dot the walls at eye level. Their perfume fills the air, evokes the delicious privacy of a night garden. The floor is springy moss, raising itself at one side into the very definite shape of a bed. 

Caleb laughs as he enters. “Well, Artagan has outdone himself. I feel as though frogs are going to start serenading us.”

Essek snorts. “At this stage, nothing is a surprise. At least it is alarmingly fey. Slightly undercuts the ridiculousness.” 

Caleb steps in. “Ridiculous is fine. We’re long past that, I think.”

“True,” Essek says, because it is horribly true, far more than Caleb yet knows—and the time for patience is past, too. He leans in, takes Caleb’s face in his hands, and kisses him.

The citrus spice of the plum wine still lingers as Essek’s tongue explores Caleb’s mouth. He should stop kissing him; there is so much for Essek to say. No, no, he will say it all later. He needs time to center himself first. He kisses Caleb deeper still. 

Caleb makes a quiet throaty sound and leans his whole body into the kiss, hands roving over Essek’s back. Essek is furiously undoing the leather straps of Caleb’s book holsters, yanking them down and moving to the waistline of Caleb’s shirt, so carefully tucked into his fitted trousers. Caleb is sucking on the soft underside of Essek’s jaw, leaning down and bending Essek gently backwards. Essek breaks away to pull Caleb’s shirt up and over his head. 

Caleb inhales sharply; his hand tugs the roots of Essek’s short hair and they dive into another kiss. Now Caleb’s hands are dipping into Essek’s waistband to untuck his undershirt. The feeling of Caleb’s fingers there, moving around the skin of his waist, jangles Essek’s nerves and goes straight to his groin. Freed, the silk undershirt falls open and Essek shrugs it from his shoulders and rolls his body against Caleb’s, pulling them close with a hand at the small of Caleb’s back. Caleb’s hips snap forward and he makes another of those lovely low sounds in the back of his throat. They move against each other. Essek has barely any room for thought now, nor any need for it. He can feel Caleb growing harder, grinding against his hip bone. 

He tugs them down towards the moss bed. It’s low; they both stumble and laugh. 

Caleb draws breath, as if he is about to speak, and for a moment a sharp pang of foreboding cuts through Essek’s excitement—does Caleb have doubts after all? Then Caleb is kissing him, rolling them both down. Caleb’s weight is on top of him for a moment, deliciously pressing Essek back into the soft moss as they grind together. Then they are rolling again and Essek is on top. He nuzzles Caleb’s jaw, slips a hand down between their bodies and starts to undo the buttons of Caleb’s pants, one by one. Caleb’s breath is heavy; he arches his hips into Essek’s hand and Essek laughs and reaches down to rub him through his pants. He’s erect now, firm and thick under Essek’s hand—

Caleb’s hips drop back to the bed and he goes utterly still, muscles tensed. Essek freezes and cautiously raises himself, looking around and listening. Now what? Damn Artagan for saying they were safe here, and damn who or whatever—friend or foe—has interrupted them.

Caleb carefully covers Essek’s hand with his own. “Stop,” he whispers.

The tent is quiet. Outside, laughter and murmurs drift over faintly from the fireside. Essek looks at Caleb questioningly. Caleb’s face is utterly rigid with tension, his eyes wide and pained. Essek frowns in question and tilts his head fractionally at the entrance to their tent.

“No,” Caleb says, voice a little strangled. “We’re safe. I’m sorry, no one is here, that was not what I—we are safe.” He rubs a hand across his face. “Essek, we need to talk.”

Essek swings a leg off Caleb and sits cross-legged beside him. His own nerves are clanging with alarm … and with the aftereffects of the much more pleasant erotic tension of a few moments earlier. 

Caleb sits up facing him, sucks in a breath, then his words spill out in a flood. “Essek, I am sorry. I didn’t mean for things to go as far as they did before we spoke. I lost control.” 

He looks down and mutters something almost silently under his breath, again and again. Essek thinks he catches Zemnian sounds. Part of Essek’s mind is yelling _now, now you are rejected. You have played and lost._ Another, less shamefully selfish part of him is worried. He has never seen Caleb so discomposed, and they have fought monsters together.

He puts his hand gently to Caleb’s upper arm. Caleb’s breaths are hard and short. He doesn’t respond for a moment—then he pats at Essek’s hand. He’s not meeting Essek’s eyes; instead, he’s staring fixedly at a spot on the mossy floor. Essek removes his hand. 

“Caleb?” he asks, carefully. 

Caleb blinks, but still doesn’t look at him. He seems almost unreachable. Essek’s stomach twists with tension. Then, abruptly, there is a large cat standing in Caleb’s lap. Frumpkin pushes at Caleb’s chin with his forehead, then circles and settles himself on Caleb’s legs, purring loudly. Caleb swallows, and starts breathing more slowly, his hands moving over the cat. There is a pattern to the motions: a routine, Essek suspects.

Essek waits. 

After a few minutes, Caleb looks up. “I am sorry,” he says. “I am an asshole. This wasn’t the right way—we do need to talk. There has been so much between us, from the start, that has been unspoken, or we have guessed at, and—there are reasons it isn’t easy for me to do this. I think if I _am_ going to do this, I can’t do it with any more secrets, or, or misunderstanding each other.” At some point in this, his eyes have drifted down to that spot on the ground again. He runs his hands through his hair. “Sometimes I just need to know what is happening, and _when_ , and to have everything in an order where I can see it.” His hands are gesturing now, as he talks: rhythmic, emphatic. “It’s a lot to ask.”

Essek takes a deep breath. “Well,” he says, “if we are doing this all cards on the table, as it were, I think I am about to be excommunicated.” 

Caleb looks up. “What?”

“After the hot spring. When you asked me if something had happened? That was the first of numerous official Sendings over the last hour ordering me to court for admonition, immediately. Which I have ignored.”

“Ahh.” Caleb seems to sigh with his whole body, shoulders slumping in what seems like … relief? “So that was what all that was about. I thought that … I didn’t know what, exactly.”

Essek looks away. This after all, then. Caleb cannot trust him. He doesn’t have the right to be surprised. 

Frumpkin jumps from Caleb’s lap to Essek’s, circles, and settles himself, still purring. Caleb reaches out a hand, takes Essek’s, and squeezes the palm gently with his fingertips. “So,” Caleb asks, “what is happening?” There’s a high note in his voice, like a string pulled tight, vibrating with tension. “Do you think they suspect you?”

“Of the crimes I’ve actually committed? No. Or—” It abruptly occurs to Essek how often and how badly he’s miscalculated upon this score. “I hope not, at any rate. At a guess, I’m suspected of absconding with those foreign mercenaries of whom I’ve become too fond.” He risks a wry smile and a look up. Caleb’s mouth twitches, but his stare is intense, pained. Essek looks down again. 

“Will you return to your post?” 

A short, hysterical little laugh barks out of Essek unbidden. “At this stage? I just ignored a summons from the Bright Queen herself. I doubt I have a post to return to. Or a life, I suppose.”

“Do you think that returning could be a trap?”

Essek cocks his head. “Ah. That I might be arrested the moment I arrived?” He tilts a hand. “It's entirely possible. Probable, even, though I have no intentions of sacrificing more of my life for the Kryn court.”

How odd it is to say it. How easily, after everything, his old life is falling away from him. 

“Did you know that this would happen?” Caleb asks. 

Essek shakes his head. “You may say ‘I told you so’, if you’d like.” Caleb’s stare still doesn’t waver. “I … I’ve been asking myself that very question. You asked me if this trip was putting me to risk — and I lied, though the lie wasn’t to you, but rather to myself. I don’t know why … how … I convinced myself I could be here and there at the same time. That I would not have to choose. That I could be with you, and with you all. Try to repair some of the damage I have caused you. That I would not be missed in Rosohna even at such a crucial time; that I could return to my home in the Dynasty and go to and fro as I pleased.”

He isn’t measuring his words, but pouring them out as they occur to him. His heart is exposed; and as before, it’s foolish, selfish, unlovely. 

“Did you want to leave, you think?” Caleb asks, almost a whisper. “Even—when you arrived on our ship, with your bag? Do you think, perhaps, that it may have been easier to tell yourself it was only temporary?”

The words cut so very deeply that Essek can no longer meet Caleb’s face. He covers his eyes with a hand, but the breath he sucks in shakes in his throat, and makes everything worse. His eyes sting. He is horribly close to losing all composure. 

Caleb’s hand slips from his. Essek will not break down, he will not humiliate himself. He has lost everything, but he will hold on to this one last thing. 

Caleb’s hand cups his cheek, his other arm reaches around Essek’s shoulder, and Essek is drawn in until his cheek sits under Caleb’s clavicle and he is being held, held like a child. Caleb’s lips press against his forehead, just at the hairline. Essek can feel Caleb’s shaking breaths, the rapid beating of his heart under Essek’s cheek. 

Essek blinks his eyes open, and concentrates very, very hard upon his own composure. He draws in a breath and finds it a little steadier. “Well,” he says, “I probably need to figure out where I’m going next.” 

Essek knows he will absolutely _not_ be returning to lay his head upon the block for the Dynasty; even if the block is metaphorical, which may frankly not be the case. 

Caleb huffs a shaky breath out through his nose. “I think we are all much in the same boat in that regard.” He kisses Essek’s head once more, then carefully releases him, and scrubs his hands roughly over his own face.

Caleb now has his discarded shirt pulled into his lap where he is wringing it in his hands, eyes focussed on some spot in the middle distance over Essek’s left shoulder. Essek has been lost in his own misery for a few minutes, but now he’s drawn back to Caleb’s, and to see the depths of his discomposure makes Essek’s chest feel heavy. He goes to reach for Caleb, to offer a bit of comfort, and Frumpkin, heavy and forgotten in Essek’s lap, stirs with the shift. A flash of understanding strikes him. He scoops up Frumpkin’s soft weight—the creature purrs loudly, immediately—and deposits him in Caleb’s lap. 

Caleb’s hands automatically move to the cat, and after a moment, his eyes seem to take some focus. He shakes his head, blinking hard. Then he looks up at Essek.

“Hello,” he says hoarsely. “So, I am a mess. Now you know.”

“Please,” Essek says. “I’m in no position to judge. I’m sure you know me well enough now to know that.”

“Well,” Caleb says, “that is it, isn’t it?” Essek frowns. “I think it is obvious that I care for you, Essek, very deeply. But I’m still—it has been so hard to know if I can trust you, and my mind keeps catching on that. It worries me.”

“If I were you, I would not trust me,” Essek says. “I’ve hurt you. Lied to you. And now I lie to myself. I—I feel as though I barely know up from down. I’m sure there’s a graviturgy joke there, but I cannot find it.”

“I believe you now,” Caleb says softly.

“About what? What a fool I am?”

“That you’ve been honest with me. Since the day you promised so.”

“Ah.” Essek closes his eyes. He wants to say, _let me stay._ He wants to say, _please, I cannot lose you too._ He wants to say, _who brought so much pain to you?_

“Essek,” Caleb says. “So, this is what I need. Two things. If we’re going to do this, and—I want to, very much—I need to straighten these things out with you. This …” He gestures between them. “I’m not much experienced when it comes to relationships such as this, and the last time was a long time ago, and it was. Well. There was a woman. A girl, really. We were both still young. We were training together, for the Volstrucker—the Scourgers, as you know. I was in love with her. And after that time … we both ended up broken people. Different people, with very different views of the world. That was the last time, for me. It makes it scary, doing it again. And you …”

Essek is silent. He is not a good person, and both of them know it. He’s not sure what assurance he can possibly offer. 

“Here are the two things,” Caleb says, very quietly. He puts a hand on Essek’s shoulder. He’s staring again. “First thing, if you are here with me, with us, I need to know you’re not just drifting into it. I get that sometimes, it’s difficult to know what you stand for, or to know what you want from life. That’s really okay. This group, these people will help with that. You’ve seen that by now, I think. But I need to know you’re not fooling yourself: about the dangers, or the confrontation we are heading into.”

“I want to be with you,” Essek says. He did not plan to say it. It’s horribly plain. His chest is tightening again. “With you, Caleb, and with all of you. If you’ll have me.” Caleb’s eyes are burning into his. He doesn’t say yes. “What was the second thing?”

“Second thing,” Caleb says. “Something in particular, that I’ve needed to ask you for a while. The prisoner, the one that was exchanged for peace.”

“Adeen Tasithar.” 

“Yes. Was he an innocent man, Essek?”

“Innocent of stealing the beacons? Yes. In that I acted completely alone. The rest of it, the Angel of Irons cult and so forth, that he was certainly guilty of. And plenty more besides.” He remembers standing in Adeen’s office, half a lifetime ago, fists balled tight under his mantle, nails digging into his palms. Trying to match the icy, dispassionate calm he saw on that handsome face, note for note. 

“You had him arrested?”

“No. I was aware of the investigation. I asked to be kept apprised of it, not just for that reason. But yes, there was an opportunity to divert suspicion from myself without harm to anyone undeserving.” Essek shrugs. “The Dynasty regards trafficking with the Betrayer Gods as worse than any other kind of treason. I doubt I even worsened his situation.”

“He’s in the hands of the Cerberus Assembly now,” Caleb says. There’s something harsh in his voice. “Trust me, they can always find worse.”

“Adeen was a consecuted soul guilty of the most despised and infamous crime in our society. There is no person in the Dynasty who could be _less_ innocent, and in that I include myself. He was already due for worse than even I could expect to receive.”

Caleb doesn’t say anything; his expression is difficult to read, but he is still listening, still staying with Essek as he shares this dark history. Somehow, despite it all, he feels as if he could tell Caleb everything about Adeen, from beginning to end. 

“This wasn’t a moral action,” Essek continues. “It was practical. The opportunity arose and I took it.”

“You knew him,” Caleb says.

“Yes—and yes, that is a long and messy story, and though it doesn’t do me much credit, I will tell it to you. I promise.”

Caleb moves closer, leaning forward tentatively. Essek matches him. “There will be other nights,” Caleb whispers. “There are stories I should share with you too, and some of them—I’ve done terrible things. I think you may have an idea of that.” 

Essek puts a hand to the back of Caleb’s head, slowly, gently. Caleb sighs and leans forward and his forehead thumps softly onto Essek’s bare chest. Essek’s thumb strokes his hair. “Other nights,” he whispers back. The idea of it feels like respite, hope; like something to hang onto as his old life collapses around his ears. He holds it tightly to himself. _Other nights_ , together. 

Frumpkin gets up and pads around them, rubbing against them both and chirping. They seem to draw towards each other at the same time, until they are holding each other, heads bowed, cheeks pressed together.

_____________________

The voice in his ear, familiar yet alarming, speaks Essek’s name. As he rubs his eyes and rouses himself—sleeping again? really?—the words become a torrent. _I was so concerned to hear you are missing, it would reassure many if you disclosed your whereabouts._ Laughably false concern, and the insulting hope that Essek will be stupid enough to let himself be tracked. Ehlark has always been particularly transparent when he’s being oily. Essek blinks, does not reply, and waits for the Sending to release.

The spell chimes in his brain again and another voice cuts in. _Shadowhand, get back here at once if you value your hide. This is too much! Haven’t seen Her Radiance so rattled since—_

Another Sending activates before the second has finished. _Perhaps we might aid each other. I can still smooth things over if—_

_Shadowhand, our court alliance is over, expect no help from me—_

_Shadowhand, if I might be of aid—_

_Essek, you little snake, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You—_

He sits up, gritting his teeth against the ringing in his head, the voices rising to a headache. The Sendings keep coming. Well, it seems the news is out. 

Beside him, Caleb stirs. “Essek?” he says, reaching out a hand. 

Essek sends up a single dancing light, and mouths to Caleb, _Sendings from court. Many._ He taps his own temple and winces. 

Caleb gets up on his elbows, tilts his head in question. 

The perfume of the jasmine is suffocating now. Essek’s head throbs. His chest is tight. He cannot make out the voices now, but he is surely being contacted by half the court at once. Curse the consecuted and their long accumulation of skills: why must so many of them know Sending?

Wincing through the cacophony, Essek manages to look Caleb in the eye and raise a finger. “I’ll tell you,” he whispers during a brief lull. “Promise. I need air.”

He parts the vines and staggers outside the tent. 

Somehow he’d imagined being outside would give him space from the din of echoing voices in his head. It’s immediately clear that this is not the case.

 _I might suggest—_ Pelleas Zolaed, who is on his second Sending in the last few moments alone. _You will not escape judgment_ —ah, that one’s anonymous somehow, an intriguing arcane refinement although the message itself is dull. _Your punishment may be lessened with a significant display of public piety. I can aid in arranging a two days’ sunlight prostration_ —no, thank you. 

He walks aimlessly through the circles of empty flower-tents. The voices are fewer now, but that only makes their words easier to discern. Some of these people must be upon their third Sending by now. The fire has burned low, and gentle lights twinkle within the great tent at the centre. He cannot tell if he hears voices. Everything around him looks flat and unreal. He leans against a tree amid the huts, trying to breathe evenly. The long moments now where the aching tingle of the spells has left his brain only make it worse when another message arrives. 

He knows what message he is waiting for, and finally, when his mind has been silent for a full five minutes, it arrives. Dierta Thelyss has always had the most finely judged sense of dramatic timing. 

_Do you ever recall, Essek, that your actions reflect upon your den? Return. Now. I am working to clear the name Thelyss as I speak._

“As ever, the reputation of your _den_ takes all precedence. Light forbid your son be anything but a card in your hand to play as best suits your needs.”

He can tell the last parts of his reply are clipped, and before he can decide whether to conjure a Sending of his own, she begins another assault on his quiet evening of beratements and one-sided deals.

 _I knew this day would come,_ she says. _You were always a spider, Essek, nothing in your heart but yourself. The Light knows it. I know it._

“Does the Light know where I got it from?” Essek snaps back before he can stop himself. “I’ve slit fewer throats than you have, Umavi.”

The ringing silence he receives may as well be a reply.

He has never in his life, even in their most bitter arguments, used such words to her. It’s horribly liberating for a moment, unleashing that entirely untempered fragment of his anger. Then the blank, surreal terror seeps back in. It’s oddly reminiscent of how he felt back in the jungle, reeling as that pack of displacer beasts tore him to shreds blow by blow. Then, as now, he dug his own grave.

Essek walks to the fire, drops onto a log, and puts his head into his hands. He cannot stop the tremor in his limbs, and he hates it, because, irrational as it is, he knows she would take the weakness as her own triumph.

“Hey there,” Caduceus says. Essek startles and stares. Caduceus is sitting perfectly still, cross-legged on the ground on the other side of the dying fire, hands in his lap. He must have been there all along.

“I disturbed your rest,” Essek says, trying for a fragment of composure. “I’m sorry.”

Caduceus waves a hand. “Oh no,” he says. “I was just meditating in the quiet. How are you doing?”

Essek barks a bitter laugh. “You heard me just now.” 

“Family?” Caduceus says. Essek tilts his head. “People get a certain sound in their voice, you know.”

Clearly, he’s being polite: if he’s overheard Essek in the last few minutes, surely he knows by context alone with whom he’d been conferring. It’s oddly calming, though, the tacit offer to not speak about his mother. The boiling acid in his gut churns uncomfortably each time he pictures her scornful face.

“The latest messages were indeed from family, my mother to be more precise. It seems word of my trip has spread, and everyone is now compelled to take sides.”

Caduceus frowns as he almost visibly chews over a thought. “If you don’t mind my asking, why would anyone feel the need to take sides over your trip?”

Essek doesn’t quite know where to start with that. He attempts it anyway. “Well,” he says, “as you know, there are several notable dens within the Kryn court. Every  
move made by a member of the dens is scrutinized and weighed against the power of their name. As Shadowhand I bear a unique position within the court of great trust in regard to matters of national security …” Essek huffs a bitter little laugh. “Deeply undeserved trust, as you know, but still. It could appear … troubling if a notable member of my den abandoned their appointment; it would call into question the influence of the den itself.”

Caduceus rests his chin into one hand and gives Essek an intense, considering look.

“The whole is only as good as the sum of its parts?”

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“So they should try to elevate their members, then?”

“Oh, they do, believe me. Having your den assigned to the most prominent positions in and around the court is of utmost importance.”

“No, I mean, if someone is struggling to keep pace with the group, shouldn’t they work instead to help that person? To build up the whole by strengthening each part?”

Essek laughs. It’s rather sweet how completely Caduceus misunderstands life within the dens. “I’m afraid a more apt metaphor might be pruning a rotting vine before the rest of the ivy catches.”

“Well, that might work with gardens, but you’re not a plant, Essek. You’re a person. A person who deserves the support of those around him.”

“I, well. It’s a lovely thought, but not one that fits with the Kryn court or advancing oneself within it. That’s all that really matters to them.”

“Courts are fueled by pettiness and gossip, dear child.” The voice that cuts in is a rich drawl that has become horribly familiar to Essek over the last couple of days. 

Caduceus swivels his ears, then turns to a nearby hut and leans toward the flowers there.

“You’re a sneaky one,” Caduceus says, holding out one hand with the palm facing up.

“It’s one of my specialities,” Artagan says as he steps out of the petals and onto the firbolg’s outstretched hand. The archfey is currently sprite-sized and loosely draped in scant, green cloth.

“You were spying on us, then?” Essek demands. He’s heated, reckless, like he always is after dealing with the matriarch of Den Thelyss. Once again, he feels sickened by it all. 

“Spying, lending a friendly ear: it’s all in the context.” Artagan shrugs before settling himself into a reclined position in Caduceus' palm. “On the topic of spying, I should mention the number of attempted scries on this island have absolutely _soared_ to new heights this past hour. I take it you’re at fault for that?”

Essek is taken aback for the briefest of moments. Of course they would attempt to scry. He’s taken certain precautions for more than a decade already, so he knows no one could attempt to watch him directly; but he’d shown a weakness for the foreign mercenaries he’d been assigned to ward. Surely someone would think to look into the whereabouts of the Mighty Nein, and by proxy, possibly glean some detail that would implicate his presence. 

“When you say attempted,” Essek asks carefully, “do you mean to say they were unsuccessful?”

“Well, yes.”

“Was that your doing?” Caduceus asks.

“Of course! I can’t have just anyone learn the secrets of my religion.” 

“You said earlier that you had certain protections in place here that would prevent a surprise attack,” Essek says. “You’ve blocked multiple scrying eyes today: is there anything else that we need to be apprised of?”

Artagan makes a show of scratching his chin as he mulls over the question. He certainly has a penchant for drama, though Essek supposes that may simply be the nature of archfey; he’s never before met one, but everything he has been taught in his lessons or read in Exandrian history has heavily suggested that the very nature of fey is exaggeration, without limit. 

“Fjord is worried about his former patron, though he wishes to keep those concerns to himself.”

“Hey,” Caduceus says, “that was private.”

“Is anything ever actually private?” Artagan asks in a way that suggests that absolutely nothing is indeed actually private. “Beauregard is worried about the Cerberus Assembly—” 

Essek cuts in with a wave of his hand. “This we know. Will you be keeping us informed of any outside threats?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want anything unseemly to befall my high priests, especially in the days before the big event.”

Essek has already been suffering a headache, but now his head throbs in a new, but equally painful way.

Artagan rolls over onto his stomach and props his chin onto his hands as his hair spills over Caduceus’ hand. “But let’s get back to the _interesting_ stuff, my dear boy. Tell me more about what’s brewing between you and the human.”

“That’s also private,” Caduceus says sternly. 

Artagan merely waggles his eyebrows at Essek in an invitation to share.

“You said that courts are fueled by pettiness and gossip, and you weren’t wrong. I seem to have gifted the Kryn court with a new bevy of speculations. I’m sure you can imagine the situation.” It’s a statement, but also a question. There is no one within the Mighty Nein who would truly understand the delicacy of the situation Essek is in, and Essek finds he very much needs to be understood in this. 

Artagan makes a sickened face. “Gossip, speculation, lies; and all of them are surely not nearly as interesting as the man himself. Good for you for walking away.”

“You walked away yourself, then?”

“We-ell,” Artagan’s voice rises several octaves as he hangs on the word. “You could say I walked away. The fey courts certainly had no place for someone such as myself. The rules, the rituals: all of it pedantic and boring and ultimately meaningless.”

“That's why you’ve tried to start your own following,” Caduceus says. “To create a space for yourself where there was none.”

“You may be onto something, Caddington,” Artagan says. “However, this conversation has lost its spark—it’s veering perilously into mortal feelings—so I will take my leave. Toodle-pip!”

A moment later, he’s simply not there.

Caduceus closes his hand and sighs forcefully. “Well,” he says, “I feel like we learned a little something tonight; he’s an interesting one.” 

Essek shrugs. “He’s an archfey … and thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Caduceus smiles. “For what?”

“For…,” Essek drifts off for a moment as he struggles to pinpoint the source of his current tensions. “I told Caleb. About the excommunication, the court scandal, all of it.”

“Oh?”

“I’d made him a promise, to all of you in fact.” Essek sighs. “I think it eased things. He was very understanding. He extends so much generosity to me.”

Caduceus gives him a very level look. “Generosity makes you very uncomfortable. That must be hard.”

“I suppose … that there has been little room for it in my life.” Essek lowers himself to sit on the ground in front of the log, cross legged and mirroring Caduceus. He leans back against the log. “And it’s not as if I’ve done much to deserve such understanding.”

“What’s made you think understanding is something you have to deserve?”

Essek tilts his head. He’s never considered such a thing. Now, with his head ringing and exhaustion starting to seep into his bones, he can’t make any sense of the idea. 

“People have their own reasons for doing things, Essek. A lot of different reasons. Are you still adding up favours and debts here?”

“No,” Essek says. His throat has closed, and his voice is a painful undertone. “I am in far too much debt to you all to ever hope to clear it.”

“I don’t know if that’s an entirely bad thing.”

Caduceus is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “You know, one time I died, and Jester got me back. So, I owe her an awful lot. If we’re adding up all the debts and the favours, and I guess the wrongs too, I dunno.” He scratches at the nape of his neck. “I think we’re beyond adding it all up. You’ve been with us for about a week now: how many times have you saved someone’s life … how many times have they saved yours?”

“This is all very new to me,” Essek says, voice still quiet. “My world has always worked very differently.”

“The seasons always bring change along with them. The creatures that thrive are the ones that change with them.” 

Essek doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he bites his lip instead and tries to make sense of the mess he’s currently in. He’s effectively defected from his den, his nation. It had always seemed like an abstract possibility that he’d never fully considered until, well, very recently. He never expected the Mighty Nein to accept him after they’d learned the truth—he’d sincerely hoped they’d never learn the truth at all—but as each day passes, it solidifies before him as a tangible possibility. He _could_ stay with them, maybe. Caleb hasn’t rejected him … not yet. He keeps leaving openings for Essek to step through. Could Essek really still have him, too? 

Caduceus begins to gather himself and stand. His towering height feels even more extreme now as Essek sits on the ground, curling into himself, hiding in his thoughts. 

Caduceus bends at the knees and places a hand on Essek’s head. “Whatever you decide to pursue, to better yourself, we’ll be with you. Try to get some rest.” Without waiting for an answer, he simply lopes off toward one of the huts.

This has certainly been quite the night already.

_____________________

Caleb, he has learned, is a light sleeper even in relative safety. He’s seen Caleb perform the Alarm ritual enough times to guess as to why. As Essek pulls the curtain of vines aside to enter their tent, Caleb stirs from his sprawl, and in a moment is sitting up and flicking his fingers to cast a single Dancing Light into the air.

“It’s me,” Essek says. He sits down heavily on the edge of the moss bed. “That was eventful.”

“Do we need to act?” Caleb is rubbing his eyes with the heel of one hand. Essek finds himself reaching out to touch Caleb’s cheek. Caleb sighs and leans into it, his beard stubble prickling on Essek’s palm. Essek’s heart moves strangely within him. 

“No,” Essek says. “Nothing has changed, materially. It was merely—an explosion of court gossip and maneuvering. People attempting to gain the most benefit from my absence.” Caleb is stretching out his arms, drawing Essek into a hug. “Also, my mother, there is a lot there, I suppose. And I spoke with Caduceus afterwards, and the archfey butted in and was disquietingly helpful.”

“Mm,” Caleb grunts drowsily. They are lying down now, and Essek’s cheek is laying on Caleb’s chest. “A lot there. In the morning?”

“Yes,” Essek says. “The morning.”

They’re both long-unused to intimacy, it seems, yet for all that, how rightly their bodies seem to fit together. How easy this is, and how welcome it feels. Essek stretches an arm and a leg over Caleb, and they settle.

_____________________

“Oh my gosh, you guys! It’s almost here! Tomorrow’s the big day!”

Jester grabs both Caleb and Essek by the hand and drags them the rest of the way to the campfire. It burned out in the night, but Caduceus seems to have rekindled a corner of it for the purposes of breakfast. 

As they arrive, they are handed round tea in small tin cups and some kind of flat cake. They take their place around the remnants of the fire with the rest of the Mighty Nein and the archfey who drew them all to Rumblecusp. Essek does not look at Artagan as he takes a bite of his cake: heavy, slightly sweet, and fragrantly spiced like most of Caduceus’ cooking. Essek has had a lot on his mind the last several days, but this isn’t the first time that it occurs to him that they are all preparing for something unprecedented in Exandria’s long history. Inevitably, this event will find its way into chronicles. It isn’t exactly the way Essek had hoped his name would be recognized. Still, there is a small smug satisfaction in picturing his mother reading the phrase _Essek Thelyss, High Priest of the Traveler_ in texts.

“I know we wanted to leave room for surprises,” Jester says, her mouth half-full of cake, “but did anyone want to practice some of their performance today?”

“Performance?” Fjord asks. “I feel like that word’s been used a lot recently, and I think it would do us all a lot of good if you and the Traveler would elaborate.”

“I don’t know about you, Fjord, but I’ve been practicing,” Yasha says. She’s perched on one of the campfire logs and strumming her harp, which upon closer look seems to be constructed of a spinal column. Essek decides this is an object of curiosity that does not, in fact, require more information.

“Yes!” Artagan stands and begins pacing about the clearing, his fingers steepled and his focus beyond that which Essek can see. “Yes, that is a solid place to start. Let’s add to that: what else do we have prepared?”

“I could perform a shooting demonstration,” Veth says, a dangerous glint in her eye. 

Artagan stops pacing. “Oh, yes! We could create targets with increasing levels of difficulty. Maybe something with fire?”

“I could make a few more explosive bolts,” Veth offers. “We’ve got plenty of gunpowder on the ship.”

“And like, maybe we can have a pretend fight too! Like I can make my spiritual weapon look like something else and you can dodge it while shooting?”

“That could work!” The archfey is growing more animated by the second. 

Beauregard coughs loudly. “I mean, I could pretend to attack you also, Veth. _Lightning fists._ ”

“Don’t think I won’t shoot you again,” Veth says. 

They give each other an intense glare before simultaneously breaking out in similar, wide grins. “Chaos Crew!”

“Making it look real, that’s good, very good,” Artagan says. “And Melora’s crew?”

Caduceus clears his throat as he lifts his staff. “I’ve spoken with my little friends, and we may have something of an idea.” 

He holds out his hand, and from the staff crawl several jewel beetles that take perches on separate knuckles.

“All right, guys, show them what we talked about.”

Strangely, each of the insects opens their wings, and begin making sounds in concert with one another. The effect is immediately disquieting, and Essek has the distinct feeling that there are more of these friends at Caduceus’ call.

“That … could be interesting,” Artagan says, grimacing. “What about the wizards? Surely they must have something impressive to display.”

“Actually,” Essek says, “before we discuss our, uh, performance? I thought it would be prudent to update the group on my … situation.”

Caleb reaches for Essek and twines their hands together. They both stand.

“Oh no! Is everything okay?”

“Yes, Jester,” Essek answers. “Well, it’s complicated, but that is what I would like to talk with you all about.”

“You’ve got this,” Caduceus says encouragingly.

Essek takes a deep breath, then lets it out, and everything feels just a tiny bit lighter.

“Yesterday, I … I was put in a position where I needed to make a significant choice about my future.” All eyes are on him. Ah, this is not going to be easy. “As you all know, I come from a prestigious den, and held a court appointment of certain distinction. There are … elaborate politics involved in maintaining the prominence and reputation of Den Thelyss, or any of the dens for that matter, and it seems my extended leave in this time of transition has upset that balance.” He looks at Fjord, then to the rest of the group in turn. “I misjudged the situation, and for that I apologise to you all. I stayed away too long, and at the wrong time. Questions were asked, my allegiance was called into question, and when I was commanded to return and pledge myself to the Dynasty, I chose to stay away.”

“So you’re running, then?” Beauregard is watching him with keen interest. 

Essek knows what he says now will weigh hugely on whether he will be allowed to stay. Caleb had seemed rather optimistic about the situation when he’d properly woken this morning and heard the latest details of Essek’s dwindling options. Essek is less sure, but Caduceus had seemed in favor of him remaining with this group, so it doesn’t feel completely out of reach. Yet.

“Some could view this as me running away. I can’t deny that—but it’s more than that. I think I’m finally moving toward a future that is mine.”

“Will they let you?” Beauregard asks. “Can the Shadowhand really just walk away from the Dynasty because he wants to?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. In the history of my people, such a thing has yet to happen … or if it has, it has been erased from written record.”

“Do you think they suspect you?” Veth says. “I mean of, well … you know, stealing the Beacons?”

“I have no way of knowing that.” He tries for a wry smile. “After all, they would not exactly tell me so when calling me home.” He shrugs and spreads his hand. “But the mood when I left was that most at court are very glad to close that topic. War is expensive. They greatly prefer their spying games.”

“Wait,” Artagan says, holding up a hand. “Stealing _beacons_?” He puts a hand to one cheek in a mockery of shock. “Those very important glowy, arcane melon thingies? Essek, you dark horse, you.”

Essek presses a hand to his face. Yes, this intervention is exactly what this conversation needed to become even more horrible. 

“But I told you!” Jester says, shocked. “I told you all about it, remember? And I made you those drawings with Essek smuggling the beacons under his shirt like boobies, and then the one of his really bad disguise—sorry, Essek, but it was pretty bad—and then with Essek crying and Caleb kissing him on the forehead. You said that one was really artistic!”

“Ahh,” Artagan says, finger on chin. “I remember the snogging one, absolutely, beautiful shading, but I’ve been so very stressed about our event I suppose the other details just escaped me.” He mimes a butterfly fluttering away. “I just can’t believe he had it in him to be so _naughty_.” He stares directly at Essek now with disconcertingly bright green eyes. “Took you for one of those typical stick-up-the-bottom type elves. Tiny bit more respect now, if I’m honest.” 

Essek makes renewed eye contact with the embers of the fire. He can hear snickering noises emanating from at least two people. He suspects which two. 

Fjord clears his throat loudly. “Back to the matter at hand,” he says. “I have to ask: will they come for you?” 

“Yeah,” Beauregard says. “The Bright Queen definitely gives the impression that there is _nothing_ she wouldn’t do to regain what she believes is hers.” Of course, Beauregard wastes no time getting to the point.

“I cannot argue against that,” Essek says. He’s fairly certain that Leylas Kryn no longer wants him anywhere near her court, but that doesn’t mean she’s necessarily willing to let others outside the Dynasty benefit from his talents and knowledge. So much depends on what mood she is in these days …

Caleb steps forward. “Listen,” he says. “From the moment you all met me, there has been the shadow of the Cerberus Assembly lurking in every corner, waiting for me and anyone I hold dear.” He gestures to Fjord. “Fjord has had the shadow of his former patron at his heels, and we have faced those agents more than once.”

Fjord chews his bottom lip, then he stands as well. “I can’t speak for anyone else. In fact, as Caleb says, I am heavily in your debt for all the times you have fought with me. Fought to keep me alive. I was in over my head, and not always aware of the implications of my choices—but I have had to own those mistakes time and again, and will continue to do so.” He looks at the rest of the Mighty Nein. “I can’t ask you all to take on more danger, but I find it difficult to look this man in the eye and say he doesn’t deserve the same chance I have had.”

Caleb nods. “It would certainly be a risk, but how different would it be than other risks we have willingly taken? I believe Essek has shown that he is doing far more than running. He wishes to tread this path with us. He has put his talents at our service, but I think we’ve also seen he wishes to help, and that he is willing to put himself in harm’s way to do it.”

Essek swallows, his throat tight with emotion. “I can only ask that you all consider that risk a risk worth taking.”

Caleb squeezes his hand.

“Okay, but what will your opening act be?” Artagan waves one hand expressively. “The monologues were nice enough, but I was hoping for something more _visually_ impressive. Like a literal light show sort of deal.”

Jester pops up from her seat and rushes toward Essek, crushing him in a hug. “Essek, of _course_ we’re gonna help you! That’s what friends do!” Her horn scratches his shoulder as she buries her head against him.

He looks to Caleb, who offers him a teary grin before joining Jester in the hug. 

“I’m glad you’ve chosen the difficult path,” Caduceus says as he, too, joins the hug, his long arms reaching around them all.

Someone squeezes Essek roughly from behind. “We’ve all been fuck-ups,” Beaureagard says. “But we try to leave everywhere just a little bit better than it was before.”

Essek thinks back to the first hug Jester gave him several months ago, outside the house Den Thelyss provided to the “Heroes of the Dynasty” who had unwittingly undone some of Essek’s worst deeds. He could never have guessed how far removed he would become from that lonely man steeped in heresy.

It’s difficult to tell, but it feels like the whole of the Mighty Nein is embracing him right now, his small frame crushed beneath their collective force. Someone kisses his temple: it’s Caleb. Essek tries to reach for him, and finds his arms trapped and useless. He laughs instead.

“ _Friends_ , Jester. I feel like we are misusing our practice time on banal exercises in trust and friendship.”

As Essek knees begin to buckle under the pressure of the group hug, he automatically calls to mind the formula to adjust their collective density, lightening the load. The group then disentangles themselves; Fjord slaps Essek on the shoulder. Beauregard punches him stiffly in the same spot. 

“We’re sorry, Artagan,” Jester coos. “This was important! But we are definitely going to plan the biggest, most extravagant display for you tomorrow because that’s important too!”

“Yup,” Beauregard says.

Full of fresh elation, Essek wracks his brain for some dramatic thing he can provide for the performance. “I could erect immovable objects in midair for Veth’s daring archery? Perhaps a flaming hoop and some platforms to leap from?”

“This! This is the sort of thing we need,” Artagan says, wrapping one arm around Essek’s shoulder as he gesticulates with the other hand. “What else have we got?”

“I can provide the flames,” Caleb says. “I was also thinking perhaps that Frumpkin could deliver reading materials of a religious sort to each of the guests in his own cleric’s cloak?”

“Sprinkle could help!”

Somewhere in the depths of Jester’s collar, the small creature hisses and spits loudly.

“Well geesh! You don’t have to if you don’t _want_ to!”

Essek chuckles to himself as Jester discusses fabric scraps for the familiar’s tiny cloak; everyone settles themselves back around the campsite. It’s oddly comfortable, this chaos. So much of Essek’s immediate future is still horribly uncertain; he cannot be sure what Den Thelyss will do to protect their reputation, or whether the Bright Queen will let him walk away. He cannot even be sure what this new and fragile affair with Caleb will become. Yet, surrounded by his friends—who somehow, despite everything he has done, are giving him their acceptance and trust—Essek finds that he is beginning to hope.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to Vex for the German language help!

They have barely set foot on the beach before people start stripping their clothes off for the morning swim. Even several days into their stay on the island, it’s still a little disconcerting to witness. Xhorhas contains within itself many cultures, some of which are perfectly at ease with public nudity; but the noble Dens are absolutely not among them.

Essek has to turn away surprisingly quickly to avoid seeing the first bare butt.

This morning, it’s Fjord who strolled down to the beach barefoot and shirtless, and so had a head start. Beau races after him with a shouted challenge. Next to Essek, Caleb is stripping off with his usual careful rapidity. He places his book holsters on top of his clothes with a nod to Veth. Naked apart from his amulet, Caleb ducks under Essek’s parasol and kisses his temple, then strides towards the water. Unlike with the rest, Essek watches him go. 

“So,” Veth says, nodding towards the rock they’ve been washing behind while the others swim, “you want first wash?” 

Essek tilts his head for a moment, catching the laughter of the others out in the sea. Jester just splashed Beau, and Beau is exacting unusually gentle revenge in kind. Yasha has swum further out and is floating on her back, her hair spreading out around her. Caleb, standing with the water lapping at chest height, crouches and ducks his head entirely underwater, then rises, wiping his dripping hair back from his face. 

Essek remembers the scandalous open air hot tub the Nein built back in their house in Rosohna: Lord Biylan’s complaints about having naked foreigners for neighbours, his insistence that Essek go over and _explain to them_ the norms of civilised society. Essek took great satisfaction in reminding him that the Luxon asks us all, does it not, to continually learn and expand our horizons, to understand the ways of other peoples? His face had been hilarious. Essek has no more use for such propriety now, he supposes, no need to use the same rules that cage him to trip up others in petty revenge. 

He watches the others splashing in the surf for a moment. Essek finds himself marvelling at how much of his mind and his energy he used to devote to navigating the tangled webs of court intrigue, to carefully planning every detail of his presentation. He would measure out precisely how much lip-service piety was needed in a certain setting, would judge the exact right moment and audience for offering new proofs of his arcane value or reminders that he is not to be trifled with—and in return, he would calculate how much permission he had won to be himself. 

Here, nobody asks for permission to be. 

Essek closes his parasol and plants it in the soft sand. He untucks his undershirt, slips it off and places it, folded, on top of Caleb’s clothes. He steps out of the leather slippers he’s taken to wearing on the island. 

“Oh,” Veth says. “You’re going in today? Well, watch out for beasties, there’s all kinds of horrible, murderous things in the ocean.” She glares out at the water. “Plus there’s the ocean itself …”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Essek says. 

As Veth picks up Caleb’s book holsters and heads behind the washing rock, Essek starts to unbutton his silk pants. Is he really going to do this? Yes. He’s committed now. To public nakedness. He pulls his pants and underclothes down in one movement, folds them, and sets them down. Then he walks purposefully towards the water, keeping his gaze fixed on a single pebble on the shoreline. His cheeks heat up anyway. He’s not sure he’s ever been naked outside, and certainly not with the sunlight beating down on his skin. There was that time he’d had sex in the walled garden of Adris Beltune’s summer villa … but as he recalls, most of their clothes stayed on for that. 

Under the water, the sand shifts softly beneath his bare feet. The water is cool, but not cold; already, the morning sun warming Essek’s skin has taken the edge off the ocean’s chill. 

He’s nearly waist-deep in the water and feeling thankfully a little less exposed before anyone seems to notice he’s there. 

Jester yells, “Essek! You came in the water with us! This is so cool! Do you like it? Isn’t it awesome?”

“Essek, are you _naked_?” Beau asks, mock-scandalised. “Is this like a Disguise Self thing: are all your clothes on under there?”

Caleb turns at that moment, sees Essek, and his face lights up in a huge grin. For a moment, Essek finds himself speechless. He takes a breath and tries to recall himself. “No, they are not,” he says. 

“Hey, Essek,” Fjord says. “You want to check out the coral reef?” Essek blinks at him. 

“Oh,” Caduceus beams, “it’s really something. Every colour, so many kinds of life.”

“It’s super pretty,” Jester chirps. “Just over there, you see? It’s not far. Where the water looks a lighter colour?”

Caleb simply smiles at him. 

Essek nods, and follows the others as they reach deeper waters and start to swim. It’s something of a challenge to keep his head above water; he resigns himself to his tinted glasses getting covered with saltwater spray. Jester wasn’t wrong, though. It only takes a few moments to reach the spot. As the others coo and start pointing things out, Essek prestidigitates the lenses of the glasses clean and looks down. 

And, _oh_. A shoal of tiny, orange and white fish dart around his legs as he treads water. Below, the reef itself unfolds: a stunning landscape of white and coral branches, strange many-fronded things—plants? creatures?—nestled among them. The luminous colors remind him, oddly enough, of his few visits to the glowing bioluminescence of the Shadowshire’s fields. A couple of larger fish, as big as Essek’s hands held together, nibble at the reef. 

Fjord taps Essek’s shoulder. “See them? Parrotfish. That’s what we had for dinner last night.” He coughs and looks a little sheepishly to Caduceus. “The bean curd skewers were wonderful too.” 

Caleb takes Essek’s hands. “It’s magnificent, isn’t it? Have you ever swum in the ocean before?”

“I had barely seen it before these last few days. I—“ Essek looks down. Another shoal of fish swim between them, these ones silvery, darting and slim as eels. The water is astonishingly clear at this depth, with a turquoise tint to it. He looks back to Caleb. “It’s extraordinary. A first.”

“You’re seeing the world with us now!” Caleb says. “I hope that there will be many more firsts.” 

Essek doesn’t even know where the Nein are planning to go next. If they will have him—and it seems they will, miraculously—he will be with them, one of them. 

“Speaking of that,” Caleb says. He draws them together. Lightened by the water, Essek leans into him as he murmurs into Essek’s ear. “Let’s make a stop back at our tent after this. We can join the others at the amphitheater in a while.”

Essek tilts his head at Caleb. He finds him grinning widely, but there’s a hint almost of bashfulness to his expression. It’s unbearably charming. Impulsively, he kisses Caleb between his jaw and earlobe, then on his neck, behind his ear. Caleb laughs and ruffles Essek’s hair. 

“Hey, wizards!” Beau yells. “Save it for the tent!”

Essek cannot help but laugh himself. Caleb leans in, forehead to forehead. Essek cannot remember when he last felt so light, so joyful. 

As he looks down, he glimpses something larger swimming a few feet down. The shape is familiar from pictures in books: streamlined and powerful, with a pointed nose and a large, triangular fin on its back. Ah. 

“That’s a shark, yes?” Essek says, as calmly as he can. 

“Oh!” Jester says. “He’s a _baby_!” She dives under the surface and swims straight towards the creature. It darts away immediately—but she gets just close enough for Essek to register that the creature was only a foot and a half long, at most. 

“The ones by the shore are just shy little things,” Fjord says. “The big scary sharks like it out in the depths.” 

“You remember that fuckin’ huge one?” Beau says. “That followed Marius in the rowboat when he was fishing?”

Yasha laughs heartily. “I have never seen him row so fast.” 

“It was huge,” Beau says. “Like, way bigger than the rowboat. Jester was gonna Dimension Door in and grab Marius.”

“Only he was actually doing really super well,” Jester says. 

“And there was no point losing the skiff unless we really needed to,” Fjord says. 

“We really honestly wouldn’t have let it eat him. I think it was definitely trying to, though.”

“No, no,” Fjord says. “Great white sharks don’t really like the taste of people, it’s just that they have to take a couple of good bites to see if it’s their thing or not.”

Essek doesn’t hear anything anyone might say after that; the steely voice of Dierta Thelyss sounds out, as close as if she were speaking directly into his ear. 

_The sanctity of Den Thelyss remains intact, entirely thanks to me. Your death will be publicly announced: a tragic, needless loss to be remembered._

The Sending cuts out. He holds his breath, collecting his words—and then her voice rings harshly in his mind once again. 

_… bravely lost his life in pursuit of arcane advancement. If you’ve any sense—I expect no decency—Essek Thelyss will remain dead. Light help me._

“Very well,” he says, barely louder than the gentle crashing of the ocean upon the shore. He fights against the urge to say more. He doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

Caleb looks at him, searchingly. “Another Sending?”

“Yes. My mother.”

Caleb squeezes his hand, then turns to the group. “Everyone, let’s head to shore.”

It doesn’t take them long to find their way back to the shallows, the water still thankfully just deep enough to provide some level of modesty.

“What’s going on?” Veth shouts from the beach, her hands cupped around the sides of her mouth to further amplify her voice. “You all look like someone died! _Did someone die?_ ”

“Yes,” Essek says. He’s staring down at the water, focussing upon the way it distorts his legs so that they seem disconnected from his body. It’s apt: he _feels_ slightly disconnected from his body. 

“Who is dead?” Yasha asks, an alarming softness to her voice.

“Essek?” Caleb gently rests one hand on Essek’s shoulder. Essek tries to compose himself. It seems to be taking him a moment. Caleb slowly pulls him forward until his forehead is resting on Caleb’s chest. “What did she have to say?”

“Is it the Bright Queen?” Beau asks.

Essek finally takes a full breath. “It was my mother.”

“Your mother spoke to you last night as well,” Caduceus says. “It was a tense conversation.”

“Well,” Essek says, “This was probably the last tense conversation. She’s just had me declared dead.”

“ _What_?” Jester yells, splashing her way closer to them. “Did you just say that your mom said you were dead?”

“Is it a threat?” Yasha says. “Do we need to kill her first now?”

“ _What’s going on?_ ” Veth shouts from the shoreline. “What did you do now, Essek? Is it the Bright Queen? Are you assassinating her or is she assassinating you?”

Essek winces. 

“It seems that Den Thelyss and its reputation have been spared the public embarrassment of the Umavi’s son abandoning his post for a group of foreign mercenaries. Instead, Essek Thelyss has died during an arcane experiment gone wrong. A tragic loss, and a cautionary tale.”

“Wow,” Beau says. Essek is tensed for a jibe from her, but when he looks at her, she looks taken aback, even genuinely upset. “I’m sorry, man. That sucks.”

“So what does this mean for you?” Caleb asks. “Obviously you are alive and well. I understand it won’t be safe for you to return to the Dynasty, but will they come for you?”

“It’s hard to say,” Essek answers. “My mother’s Sending was essentially a warning not to force her hand.” He exhales, collects his thoughts. “It’s somewhat reassuring that the situation has been addressed publicly. It removes many avenues for pursuit, and suggests it’s unlikely Den Thelyss would send anyone to dispatch me at this time. For now, if she and whoever else is focussed upon controlling the story, I doubt she has reason or desire to expend those resources or let more people into the know.”

“ _Wait_ ,” Veth shouts. “Your mom’s just okay with throwing you away once you embarrass the den?”

“I would say it’s a stronger word than _embarrass_ ,” Essek says, “but that’s an accurate summary, yes.”

“So, not a warm hugs kind of a family?” Beau says. 

Essek smiles tightly. “Not particularly.”

“That’s a shame,” Caduceus says. “I keep hearing about too many families with too few hugs.”

“What about the Bright Queen and the rest of the court?” Fjord asks. “Who’s in on this cover-up?”

“Well, this is only an informed guess, I cannot know. Scrying would be neither easy nor particularly wise.” 

“But you _have_ guesses,” Beau states matter-of-factly. 

He twitches a smile. “I do indeed. Dierta would be foolish to make this move without the agreement of the Bright Queen and a small number of others. She is not a foolish individual.” He spreads his hands. “Unlike her son.”

“Which others?” Beau says. She’s frankly a little relentless in this mood—but he can’t fault her for asking astute questions. 

“Dusk Captain Quana Kryn, undoubtedly. She is the Queen’s partner and at her right hand in all things. The Skysybil surely also knows, but beyond the matriarchs of the three ruling dens? I suspect nobody, if Dierta has had her way.”

“What about them?” Fjord asks. 

“Any of them could move against me without telling the others, but as I said, it would risk difficulties.”

“Okay,” Jester says. “Do any of them, like, really really not like you?”

Essek pulls a face. “Possibly … all of them?”

Beau snorts, but, oddly enough, follows it up by patting Essek firmly on the shoulder. 

“The Skysybil is a mercurial woman. I recall her finding me quite annoying as a child. In her last life, she had rather a penchant for collecting copies of obscure and debunked arcane theories, and in my youth, I could not help but remind her of their fallacies whenever Den Mirimm hosted a function. She claimed to enjoy the volumes for their entertainment value, but I was convinced she was a consummate twit. It seemed my perpetual debates on graviturgy and chronurgy were ... unwelcome.”

“You were an obnoxious little smartass? No way, man.”

Essek rolls his eyes at Beau—but the teasing is oddly comforting somehow.

“Usually,” he continues, “I’d say as a ranking member of a ruling den, that she would not miss the opportunity to exact revenge against all my past slights, to put me in my place, as it were … but, she has changed greatly in her most recent life.”

“So you think it unlikely, then?” Caleb asks gently. 

“My gut tells me no, she would not. Not unless I proved an actual threat to the safety of her people.”

“And the Bright Queen?”

“Part of me fears her vengeance. She is … she’s undoubtedly a very impressive personage. She led our people out of terrible suffering, founded our civilisation, gave her life defending her people many times. But now …” 

This is treason to speak. He supposes it barely matters now, after everything else he’s done. The words still stick in his throat for a moment. 

“She has changed. Even within the few years I have been at court. There are times now when her anger can light like kindling. The Dusk Captain is a moderating influence, but still. In those moods, the Queen is hard to sway, and she leans more upon the idea that she acts by divine right. If it struck her in such a mood that my lack of faith in the Dynasty was truly heretical, perhaps she would have me hunted down—but this is not always. She is still Leylas Kryn. The toll of the war was great; this new peace is fragile. That is likely to occupy her mind far more. I think for the time being, so long as I do not disturb the peace, there will be no cloaked daggers at my back. I cannot say for how long; not indefinitely, I suppose.”

“Geesh, why does everyone have to be so all or nothing all the time? Why can’t people just live and like, be friends and stop worrying about who worships what all the time.”

“This is why I find court politics are so parochial.” Artagan is rising head first out of the water, unannounced and of course stark naked. His mane of red hair spreads out from the water and sticks to his skin as he surfaces. He rests his elbows on Jester’s shoulders with his pointed chin in his hands. “So much time and energy wasted on keeping up appearances, and for what? Looking impressive to one another? It’s no more impressive than a troop of baboons displaying.”

Essek is suddenly clenching his jaw so tightly the muscle threatens to spasm. “You are not wrong.”

“You must have some advice on how to navigate that,” Caduceus says with a great air of confidence. It’s almost as if he plans to goad the archfey into submitting to the request out of the goodness of his heart. Essek is not sure he understands Caduceus at all, but he is growing more impressed with the way he reads people, seemingly down to their very cores. 

The archfey grimaces. “There is no reasoning with them. You can either play their games or leave the pitch.” He moves his elbows, then squeezes each of Jester’s shoulders playfully. “Personally, I find it far more entertaining to be the one making the rules.”

“If only it were that simple,” Essek says. 

“So where does that leave us now?” Fjord asks.

“Vigilant,” Essek says, “and careful not to draw attention to the fact that I am traveling with you.”

“Works for me,” Beau says. “We’ve been watching our backs from the start, so no changes really.”

“Artagan, it’s been so great to spend so much time with you the last few days,” Jester says. “It was like old times, you know?”

“Oh, I do,” he says silkily.

“What kind of old times with Jester?” Yasha asks, in the especially soft voice she uses when she’s keen to make someone really shake in their proverbial boots. She’s making hard eye contact with Artagan, and impressively, he actually looks perturbed. 

“Well, we didn’t do anything _bad_ bad to anyone,” Jester says, flapping her hands and, Essek suspects, missing the point entirely. “Just like drawing poops on people’s backs, y’know, listening to people’s conversation and then, like, you send them a note saying,” —Jester attempts an intimidating growl—” _I know what you did_. We made a fake ghost in the wine cellar once, that was fun!”

“She’s always been _so_ creative,” the Traveler drawls. 

“Sure,” Yasha says, not taking her eyes from him. 

Someone gently takes hold of Essek’s hand below the water. It’s Caleb, and by his expression—Essek would say Caleb was undressing him with his eyes, were they not both naked. Essek can speculate what silent message Caleb is trying to share: let’s head back to the tent together.

_____________________

“So, that was a difficult morning,” Caleb says as they enter the floral hut.

“In some ways, yes,” Essek says. He pulls in a breath and lets it out. “Honestly, though, it felt highly liberating.” 

“What else are you feeling?” Caleb asks, leaning down to touch his forehead to Essek’s as he brushes fingertips over Essek’s ears. “So much has changed for you.”

Essek tilts up his chin, brushes his nose against Caleb’s. “It has—but it feels right, so much as anything could. I am thankful that it has brought me here with you.” 

He closes his eyes, captures Caleb’s lips with his own, and they kiss. They kiss deeply, their hands roving over each other’s bodies as they press against each other and come up for air, breaths heaving warm against exposed skin. There is so much ease and rightness in this. They are free to be together now, and they both know it. 

They stumble away from the doorway, hardly wanting to let go of each other as they each begin to undo the fastenings of the other’s clothes. It’s carnal, wild, and as much as Essek is familiar with those feelings, there is something else here, something different. He follows Caleb’s lead: lets him slip off Essek’s undershirt, and waits for Caleb to move to undo his book holsters before he goes to help him. 

Caleb’s fingers are at the button of Essek’s pants fly now. He lets him unbutton it, then pushes down his pants, steps out of them to stand naked in front of Caleb. 

Caleb looks down, and then up again, and grins, almost embarrassed. “You’re _beautiful_ ,” Caleb says, his voice low. “My words are deserting me.” He runs his fingertips down Essek’s side, then leans in and presses kisses to his jaw as, smiling, Essek works on Caleb’s pants. 

“So,” Caleb says, shucking off his trousers. He puts his hands to Essek’s waist and holds his gaze, flushed and wide-eyed. “Now we come to the part where I’m very unpracticed.” He tilts his head and grins awkwardly. “Well, not completely, I suppose, as you might imagine, but—“

Essek puts a hand on his. He kisses Caleb lightly on the mouth, and lets him take a breath. “It’s fine,” he says. Of course Essek has been thinking about this part. It’s been compelling enough, frankly, to distract him from his own death and disownment. 

“Well, I hope I’m a good learner,” Caleb says. He inhales. Essek can see the nervous babble on the tip of his tongue.

“You always are,” Essek says. “But that’s not what I meant. I’ve got this. May I?” 

Caleb nods. He leans in, puts a finger under Essek’s chin and kisses him. 

Essek looks at Caleb’s long wiry body, the scattering of red curls on his chest, his handsome jawline and wide, nervous blue eyes. He says quietly, “you’re better at compliments than I am. I am out of the habit.” He turns the hand that’s clasping his, brings it to his lips, kisses Caleb’s wrist. The scars are fine and faded, soft as the rest of Caleb’s skin under his lips. 

This is not at all how things usually go for Essek. He supposes he wouldn’t want it to be. He lowers them to the bed, and they kiss again, let their hands explore freely. Caleb’s confidence seems to return as the heat builds and they start to grind against each other. 

Essek draws back enough to look Caleb in the eye, then rolls him onto his back. He goes about everything very deliberately; lets Caleb see exactly what he’s doing. The purpose is double: it’s erotic, hopefully, but he wants to give this to Caleb in that kind of order he’s said is steadying to him.

And oh, he has imagined this too many times. 

He kisses his way down Caleb’s chest. When his incisor teeth scrape Caleb’s skin lightly, he gets a sharp intake of breath, so he makes sure to do that again, and one more time. Caleb’s skin tastes of seawater. As he nuzzles at Caleb’s hipbone, Caleb’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. Essek looks up, uncertain. Caleb is grinning from ear to ear, eyes huge. 

“How are you?” Essek asks softly.

Caleb nods. “ _Very_ good.” 

Essek strokes the tight muscle of Caleb’s thigh. “You’re tense.”

“Yes? Yes. I—“ Caleb’s gaze wanders to the ceiling. His breaths are quick, uneven, catching. “This is a lot. But ... it’s good. How are you?”

“I’m exactly where I want to be,” Essek says. He bends his head to kiss the crease between Caleb’s thigh and his groin, then settles himself lower. “Shall I continue?”

"Oh verdammt, ja, oh bitte _bitte_ nimm mich.” Caleb trembles, reaches blindly for Essek. He slides one hand up and twines their fingers together. “Yes,” Caleb whispers. “Please.” 

He squeezes Essek’s hand. 

He returns the squeeze to Caleb as he starts trailing light kisses up Caleb’s thigh, working his way up. Caleb’s ginger curls grow thicker the closer Essek gets, until he’s nosing the soft weight of Caleb’s sack. He drags his free hand gently up Caleb’s other thigh, then stops just short of touching Caleb’s hardening cock. Caleb’s breath catches, and his hips jerk ever so slightly, as though Essek’s touch is electric and Caleb’s body is beyond his own control.

“Tell me if we need to stop,” Essek says, “and we will.”

“Do not stop,” Caleb answers. “Not now. Not yet.”

In reply, Essek smiles and slides his free hand to brace Caleb as Essek begins to drag his tongue over him, starting at the base and slowly, so very slowly, moving toward the tip. He spends a few moments tickling the underside of the head with the tip of his tongue, taking in each and every twitch of Caleb’s cock, savoring every small moan that escapes his lips.

He can’t see Caleb’s face from this angle, but he can see the way he arches his back, the hurried breaths that barely fill his chest. Oh, Essek has pictured moments like this before, many nights. He has wanted Caleb, wanted this. So much of Essek’s life has been selfish, and this _does_ feel selfish, but it means much more than that. Caleb wants this too, and Essek has the power to give it to him—and he _wants_ to give Caleb this. He wants to give Caleb everything. 

He takes Caleb fully into his mouth, wraps one hand around the base to squeeze as he sucks him down. His warmth is intoxicating and firm against his tongue. Essek squeezes Caleb’s hand, and Caleb squeezes back; Essek lets it go so he can give his attention, undivided. 

It doesn’t take long for Essek to settle into a rhythm. He places one palm flat across Caleb’s lower belly—his coarse hairs tickle the sensitive parts of Essek’s wrist—to try and still Caleb’s hips as he lavishes attention on his cock. 

Caleb’s pale, freckle-dotted skin shows his flush so deeply. The blue veins at his inner wrists, the pink blush creeping over his upper chest and his face ... nowhere more than his cock, where the skin is a little darker and the deep flush of his erection is close to purple. Essek sucks sharply as he follows his hand down, then scrubs his tongue roughly along his shaft on the upstroke. Caleb twitches his hips up and digs his heels into the moss bed. The scent of greenery and jasmine surrounds them. Essek presses his own hips down into the moss: he’s achingly hard. 

It’s soon apparent that there will be no taking his time over this, not today. Caleb is immensely worked up. Fifteen years, wasn’t it? It’s been a few for Essek himself—trysts are far more of a headache with court politics and enemies and a hundred tasks to juggle—but for Caleb this is half a lifetime. A hard lifetime, with too much struggle and pain and far too little pleasure and sweetness. There’s something joyful and good about giving him this, something pained in Essek that wants to give Caleb pleasure and peace and laughter. 

This is a start, he thinks. 

He’ll admit to showing off a little. That much is usual for him in bed: he’s always taken pride in making sure his assignations leave impressed and satisfied. This, though ... Caleb alternates between staring at him rapt and throwing a hand over his face. He’s almost overwhelmed: and their shared looks and touches, the rub of Caleb’s thumb in slow circles on the back of Essek’s neck, are a language not just of pleasure, but of care and of meaning. You deserve this, Essek is telling him, you deserve tenderness and delight. You have given me so much I cannot express what it means to me. 

Essek has never been a sentimental man. This has never been a sentimental act; but all that he was is gone, a shed skin, and without it, he is something new and raw. 

When Caleb’s fingers dig into his shoulder, when he mutters _yes_ and _oh, don’t stop_ and babbles in Zemnian, when Essek places a hand over his, holds on, grips his long expressive fingers and feels Caleb tensing and shivering, feels him tightening in his mouth—

Essek swallows every last drop.

Caleb’s body instantly loses all tension, and he all but sinks into the soft moss of their bed. Essek moves his way up to meet Caleb’s face, flushed red and dewy with sweat. Caleb closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. There’s a softness, a sweetness to his expression that strikes at Essek’s heart. 

“Caleb?”

He opens his eyes, bright and blue. “I am here.” 

They meet in a kiss, this one much slower than before, languid and lazy. Caleb curls his arm around Essek’s back. Essek could stay just like this, basking in the sleepy warmth of Caleb’s affection—except the insistent, aching throb of his own erection grows ever more difficult to ignore. Especially now, as Essek drapes his naked body over Caleb’s, his skin warm and slick and _oh_ , the delightful pressure of Caleb’s hip against him. He rolls his own hips, rubbing himself against the jut of Caleb’s hipbone. 

“I … I would like to do something for you,” Caleb says, hardly loud enough to hear.

Essek grins wide, pulls Caleb to rest on his side, face-to-face with each other, then crushes Caleb’s lips in a new kiss. “Hold me,” he whispers in Caleb’s ear. “Hold me while I finish.”

They kiss, this time with fervor. Essek bites Caleb’s lip before pulling away. The small moans in Caleb’s throat send fresh waves of want through Essek, and he grinds himself against Caleb’s stomach while nibbling at Caleb’s neck. As brief as Caleb lasted, Essek suspects he won’t hold out much longer himself. 

He also finds that he doesn’t really care about that—there is no need to make this one interlude last. It’s far more than a tryst. It’s one moment in a future of many, spreading out before them in an ocean of possibility. It’s vast and comforting in its immensity. He and Caleb can savor each choice in turn. Essek … has never quite felt this way before. It fills his chest with a gentle warmth that pulses with each beat of his heart; he lets himself sink into it.

Caleb wraps his arm over Essek’s side to trace gentle patterns into his bare skin. Essek’s erection throbs powerfully, and he immediately slides down to position himself, hooking one leg over Caleb’s and pressing himself between Caleb’s thighs. The first few thrusts are slow and tight; Caleb's thighs are slick from sweat. Essek can feel his own cock leaking. It won’t be long. Caleb gently reaches down and runs his hands through Essek’s hair, glides his thumb over Essek’s ear, delicately circling the jewelry there. Essek presses his face into Caleb’s chest, breathing him in—ocean, sweat, musk—and he thrusts hard, fucking into his thighs. He grabs with one hand at Caleb’s back and pulls him closer, as close as Essek can press them. 

He builds into a rhythm; the friction of Caleb’s lean thighs and the slippery swirls of hair coating them light up each nerve in Essek’s body like fire. He can’t help but moan, loudly, and he reaches up for Caleb as he thrusts; he finds his face, drags his palm over it slowly. Caleb kisses his fingers as Essek drags them down; Essek feels the wetness of his bottom lip.

“I’m with you,” Caleb says, “I’m here” ... and Essek comes undone.

He thrusts once, twice more, and then his entire body shakes as he finishes. 

Caleb is still holding his head, so carefully. He rolls onto his back and draws Essek on top of him, strokes his hair, puts an arm around him. Essek draws breath for a few moments. He feels heavy and loose all over. He’s conscious of the stickiness of his skin; they’re sweaty, and he’s made a mess of both of them. He reaches a hand out and Prestidigitates a few times.

Caleb chuckles softly. “You make that cantrip look more useful every day.” His voice lowers. “Thank you. I mean, for the Prestidigitation, but not only just for that. For _everything_.” Caleb holds him tighter for a moment; he presses a kiss to Essek’s forehead.

“I should be thanking you,” Essek whispers. His chest and throat are tight. He draws himself up Caleb’s body, tilts up his chin to kiss him.

Caleb cups Essek’s chin, then swipes a thumb over Essek’s cheek; there’s a wetness there.

“You’re crying,” he says, face full of concern.

Essek blinks. His eyes sting at the corners, and he feels two more tears roll down his cheeks. “Ah,” he says. “It seems I am.” 

Caleb catches the tears with his fingers, wipes them away. “ _Schatz_ ,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Essek says. He laughs, and it hiccups in his throat. He kisses Caleb’s palm. “Everything is right. I’m just—” He has never felt so _warm_. It feels impossible to explain it. 

“I know,” Caleb whispers. “Oh, I know.”

They kiss, gently this time, then settle in each other’s arms in the sweet quiet. The chirping of birds and insects, the warm breeze moving through the leaves of their tent, it washes over Essek like a warm tide, and he lets it take him. After a while, Essek realises Caleb has fallen asleep. He watches him for a few moments. Caleb’s small habitual frown is smoothed out in sleep; his mouth turns sweetly up at the corners. He looks years younger. He’s snoring lightly. 

They’re supposed to be meeting the others at the amphitheater. Well, that can wait a few minutes. Essek snugs in closer to Caleb, lays his cheek again on Caleb’s chest. Caleb’s arm tightens around him a little. 

Essek has never felt so held, so appreciated. 

The gentle rise and fall of Caleb’s chest is soothing, such that Essek is certain he might fall asleep himself once again. He has not slept this much since he was a young child, but then, he has never felt quite like _this_ : safe and snug and sparkling, as though set alight by his own joy.

Of course, it would be in this moment that the hard voice of the Dusk Captain, Quana Kryn, would enter his mind like a heaping bucket of conjured ice. _Essek, formerly of Den Thelyss. It is the High Council’s decision that you are hereby banished from the Dynasty. Your life is forfeit upon return._

Essek knows this is probably the last message: with it, that chapter in his life has closed. He has lost home, family, position, country, and all the space, freedom and resources he’s spent his life accumulating. He knows intellectually that in time he will feel these losses, but right now, in this moment, he feels both freer and more at home than he can ever remember. 

Next to him, Caleb stirs and mutters, half asleep, “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Essek says, and strokes his hair, watches his eyes slip shut again. “Perfectly so.”

_____________________

“All right everyone, team meeting!” Fjord calls from the main deck.

Essek and Caleb are currently gathered with Veth and Jester toward the rear of the ship, watching Rumblecusp grow smaller in the distance. He’s almost a little sad to see it behind them, given all that’s happened there. He reaches for Caleb’s hand, and stands on his toes to kiss Caleb’s jaw. Caleb returns the favor by leaning down to kiss Essek’s temple.

Jester giggles. “Come on you guys, we’re right _here_.” She doesn’t seem the least bit put out by their affections, however. 

“Let’s go see what Fjord wants,” Veth says, offering Essek a sly wink.

Essek feels himself blush deeply as Caleb leads them both down the stairs to the main deck. They are the last of the group to arrive, Jester and Veth each settling into place among the others. 

“Well … TravelerCon happened,” Fjord begins. “Does anyone have anything to take care of next? Or anywhere they need to be? Jester?”

“I mean I always love to see my mama, but maybe it’s best if we don’t go to Nicodranas for a little while? I think Lord Sharpe is pretty pissed at me again, you know?”

“Actually, I have something,” Caleb says, raising one hand. “Beauregard may agree with me on this: the more research I have done into artifacts from a previous age—“

“Halas,” Veth says sagely.

Beau quirks an eyebrow and crosses her arms, listening.

“Yes,” Caleb agrees, “some of this relates to the artifacts we discovered within the Happy Fun ball. We all know that the Calamity erased much of our written histories. After months and months of searching, all I have found are scraps and speculations—and yet there is a common thread: the frigid ice waters of the North.” 

“Eiselcross,” Essek breathes. A reckless little thrill runs all the way through him. 

“You know it?” Caleb says, eyes flashing with something like the same excitement. 

“Only by reputation,” Essek says. “I doubt I know more than you do. The ruins of the ancient flying city of Aeor—the Dynasty has found artifacts there before, but—” he lifts his hands “—relics of the Age of Arcanum are one of the many, many important arcane inquiries they refuse to prioritise.” 

“Yes!” Caleb says. “The rumours are—many of them are very wild. I know it won’t be an easy journey, but I feel sure there are secrets to be unlocked there. Secrets that can aid us against the Cerberus Assembly, for instance.”

“Yeah, sure,” Beau says, “or we could get ourselves into a shit ton of trouble like Yussa did. Wanting to learn is great, but I feel like we could have a little bit of caution before we’re just diving in thoughtlessly with Age of Arcanum artifacts and pushing all the buttons—”

“It’s no wiser to leave it alone!” Essek snaps. “This is the exact way the Dynasty has always ignored—”

“Hey,” Beau says. “I’m not saying _Don’t Go_. I want to look into this too. I’m saying, let’s have some respect for what we’re dealing with here and not be foolhardy dumbasses.”

Essek takes a breath. “Point taken. I’ll attempt to … keep an eye on myself.”

“It’s cool,” Beau says. “Actually, I also kind of wanted to look more into Pride’s Call and other archeological digs,” Beau says. “They found a beacon there, and my gut tells me there’s something to connect them to the Age of Arcanum. Ar-cah-num.” She shakes her head vigorously. “I feel like we might learn something in a place like that.”

“Maybe we could find another beacon?” Jester says.

“Perhaps,” Caleb says. “There is much I would like to learn.”

“They are scattered,” Essek says. “I’ve always thought Eiselcross was a possible location too, following my theory that the beacons are in fact arcane artifacts; but a beacon would be … an extraordinarily dangerous find, for us and for the current balance of power in the world.” 

“Where is Eiselcross, anyway?” Caduceus asks.

Fjord immediately begins to dig through his satchel. A moment later, he pulls out a handful of rolled parchments, which Essek recognises—with some amount of dread—as the infamous map collection of the Mighty Nein. After a few careful peeks, Fjord returns all but one to his bag, which he then unfurls and holds up for the group to see.

Caleb steps forward and points to the northernmost section of the map. “Our goal is actually off of the map, north of the Frigid Depths.” 

“Do we know anything up that way?” Beau says, leaning closer to the map. 

“Marius?” Fjord cuts in. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you said this was a team meeting?”

“Yes,” Fjord drawls, “for the Mighty Nein.”

“Don’t you have duties to attend to, Marius?” Beau squares up.

“Well yeah, but everyone looked so serious I thought it was something important.”

“Return to your post, man! I’ll update the crew later.” Fjord slaps one hand to his forehead and sighs.

“Lucky,” Marius mutters to Essek before tossing back his blonde fringe and walking valiantly back to his post elsewhere on the ship.

“Of course, the Empire has had a headstart on excavating the ruins,” Caleb says, “though to me that is all the more reason to make our way there. To learn more about what they already know, and what they have already found.”

“The Empire is not the only entity who has sent forth expeditions,” Essek adds. “The Dynasty has recovered a number of artifacts as well.”

“What are the chances that we would run into either group?” Yasha asks. 

“It’s hard to say,” Essek answers. “I can’t speak for the Empire, but as I’ve said, the Dynasty’s main forces have mostly been spent protecting our borders. From my frequent casual inquiries, I’ve learned that the Marble Tomes have contracted parties of locals on Foren to lead the excavation. It’s possible there are no Dynasty officials actually present in the North: they spare very little time for scientific expeditions.” 

“Waccoh did mention weapons development,” Beau says quietly. “We know that DeRogna wanted us up north. We could send her a message and get more information on the job?”

“It would certainly give us reason to be there,” Fjord says. “What about if we run into the Dynasty?”

“You have always managed to talk your way into Dynasty events with little recourse. I expect you would be fine should you meet anyone there … provided the former Shadowhand is not accompanying you.”

“Does that mean you aren’t coming with us?” Jester says, voice keening.

“Well, I would very much like to, though I will have to be extremely cautious. It would be better if I’m not spotted with you at a specific location. And of course, I will need to leave the name Thelyss behind.”

“What about Lord Thane?” Jester leans in, mock-confidential, face full of mischief. “I kind of feel like maybe you should leave behind Lord Thane too.”

“Yes,” Essek sighs. He’s earned that. “I suppose my various aliases are no longer useful to me.”

“Are you okay with that?” Jester asks. “I mean, leaving your actual name? Did you get to choose to be in Den Thelyss yourself?”

“Not entirely, no.”

“It’s who he was,” Caleb says. “Not who he is.”

“I was never that fond of it anyway,” Essek says—and he does mean it. The name Thelyss had granted him a certain level of prestige in a city that thrived on it. He certainly both enjoyed and benefited from the opportunities granted to him, but he had never felt particularly … welcome. Thelyss means a set of expectations; and he has always only been his wayward self. Certainly, he never felt any of the bountiful ease and acceptance he has felt with the Mighty Nein. 

Yasha clears her throat. “What name will you use now that you are no longer part of Den Thelyss?”

“How about Dust?” Caduceus says. “You’ve burned the ties to your past to dust.”

“Isn’t that one of your family’s shrine guards?” Beau asks, looking somewhat confused.

“Yes, the Dust family protects the Underforge in Kragvaraad.” Caduceus grins and shrugs. “It's an interesting coincidence.”

“That’s not actually a coincidence, though, that was all your idea.” 

“You could be Essek Lavorre,” Jester suggests. “There’s always room in my family!”

“Is there a name in this group that you _would_ want to adopt?” Veth asks, grinning wide. “It’s cool if there is; you can tell us. _Zone of Truth!_ ”

Essek blinks.

“Oh I don’t have that one today,” Jester says. She looks alarmingly sad about it. 

“Essek doesn’t have to choose a new name for himself just yet,” Caleb says. “Or at all. Names are what you make of them: only important if you deem them so.”

“I’ll be sure to … consider an appropriate traveling alias, if nothing else,” Essek says, distracted.

His thoughts are drifting back to a few days before, on the beach with Caleb, discussing the final details of their Force Barricade spell. It had seemed such a silly thing to want to credit the spell with a personal name. It’s not the way of things in the Dynasty, where the prestige of your Den precedes all else, but Essek is no longer part of that structure. His accomplishments will be his and his alone—of course, unless, he chooses to share them.

Essek gets to choose who he gets to be now, in more ways than one. 

“So should we bamf over to Zadash for supplies, then?” Beau is saying. “Essek, you think you can then teleport us to Eiselcross?”

“I’m sorry?” he says. “Oh, yes, I am fine to teleport us as needed. I can take us to Zadash and beyond whenever everyone is ready.”

“Actually, I can take us to Zadash,” Caleb says, “but we can certainly use your help in traveling North.”

“So it’s settled then,” Fjord says. “Once we get the ship out of Revelry waters, we’ll head to Zadash for supplies, maybe spend the night, and then onward to Eiselcross.”

“Have you ever been to Zadash, Essek?” Jester asks. 

“No, never.” Essek tilts his head. “I’ve been to very few places outside the Dynasty, other than with all of you.”

“Oh! You’re really gonna like it. You can meet my dad!”

“There are speciality book shops,” Caleb suggests. “Arcane shops as well.”

“Wait, isn’t Pumat actually working for the Assembly, though?” Veth asks.

“Essek can Disguise himself,” Beau says. “We’ve all had to sneak around Zadash at one point or another.”

“True,” Veth says. “This will be the first time I’ve traveled to Zadash with this face.”

“Then we should be sure to take advantage,” Caleb says. “How about we all stay at the Pillow Trove this time around? It will be a nice treat after all the camping and ship cabins.”

“I would like to check in with Pumat,” Fjord says. “See that he’s all right after everything.”

“We can get _bear claws_ , Essek! Zadash has some really, really good bakeries!”

“I would like that,” he says … and he means it.

_____________________

The sun hangs low in the orange sky, with small purple clouds scattered like glowing lichen in an unkempt garden. Essek has never seen the sun as much as he has on this trip. He supposes that until now, he hasn’t perhaps had the chance to appreciate how very beautiful a sunset might be. He hasn’t had the chance to appreciate a lot of things until very recently. It’s a painful thought.

Perhaps not quite as painful as when he considers the fragile uncertainty of his future, or all that he has left behind to pursue it. He doesn’t regret that choice; he is where he wants to be. But, as he knew would happen, that sense of liberation and bubbling joy he had two days ago, while still present, is tempered now with more sober thoughts. 

From nowhere, it strikes him powerfully how _unfair_ it has all been. Not his mistakes, which at least have been his own choices to regret, but the whole suffocating structure of his life as the son of the Umavi of Den Thelyss. 

For as long as he can remember, he has been reminded of the great fortune of his birth and his talents, of how easily everything falls into his grasp. That he should be glad of his fortunes, as they were not bestowed on many. The lesson was never right, though. No one had ever wished to educate him about the gulf between his experience and that of less privileged souls. No, the aim of these reminders was to control and contain Essek; to teach him not to question his place in the world, or the expectations of political advancement placed upon him, or the crushing weight of religious strictures governing every aspect of his life. 

None of it ever worked. His curiosity and willfulness have always won out, for as long as he can remember, no matter what it cost him; and so every year of his life he has become more of an outsider in his own den and world. 

It is such a breathtaking relief to be free of it all. 

There are moments he feels lighter than air. But at this moment, instead he looks at the mess he has made of his own life, the much worse mess he put out into the world in his attempts to bargain himself a little freedom—and, no matter how small and selfish of him it is, he is so very, very angry. 

What a devastating blow for Dierta Thelyss, to lose her eldest son so soon after her dear husband. Essek knows she is not sorry; not entirely. She will, of course, perform the public mourning appropriate to someone of her stature. She will wear her pristinely cut white bereavement silks. She will prostrate herself before the Light within the intimacy of the beacon chambers and outside in the public square—but he knows she is relieved to be rid of him and his defiance; she told him often enough. She must be pleased to have had the final word as well. That was a favourite skill of hers. She always prided herself in laying down the final tile of the match, and Essek had often felt the compulsion to challenge her. 

What would he say if he were to message her one last time? The thought compels him like an itch. He would drop the Sending immediately, as if he were the Bright Queen herself. _Isn’t this what you always wanted?_ No. _You loathe me because you see your own reflection. You’ll never be rid of yourself._ And, _I’m glad that Verin, too, is nowhere near you._ He blinks. He’s surprised himself. His younger brother is an insufferably pompous, pious, unthinking dope; Essek can’t remember the last time he felt particularly protective of him. He turns the thought over in his mind. Yes, he _is_ glad to know that Verin in Bazzoxan will at least have some distance on this Den high drama. It probably says something that a perpetually besieged gateway to the Abyss could be considered preferable accommodation to Den Thelyss. That, he thinks, would be a particularly unforgivable thing to say to the Umavi. He’s tempted. 

_I would rather have the Abyss itself as a neighbour_ , he composes, counting the words in his head. 

A dry voice enters his mind, thin as rice paper, the words each punctuated by slow, rattling breaths. _If your Den insists upon clipping your wings, it is not a den, but a cage. You were meant for open skies, Essek._

Essek stares out at the sea, stunned to breathlessness. That was the Skysybil, Abrianna Mirimm, matriarch of Den Mirimm. 

He’s known her his whole life, but they were never particularly close, to say the least. No one in the dens truly were. For her to reach out to him in this way … especially considering that he has given the Skysybil no reason to ever think so compassionately of him. Was she being sincere, or was this some ploy to extract information from him? What an awful thought to have after so kind a message. He doesn’t know what to make of it. 

_Open skies_ … It rings in his head.

The young half-elf woman from the ship’s crew walks past Essek on the deck, a large coil of rope over one shoulder. She’s whistling loudly, and doesn’t so much as glance at Essek as she passes. 

An outside perspective, he muses. That’s what he needs right now. He even knows in his gut whose opinion he’d like to hear, and it surprises him more than a little. Nothing about the last few months has made sense to Essek, though, and so he decides once more to butt against his own expectations.

_____________________

Caduceus is sitting with his back against a stack of large, wooden barrels, legs gently crossed and arms folded loosely in his lap. He’s watching the small sliver of moonlit sky though the open port at the end of a cannon. He turns one ear slightly as Essek approaches, but he does not look away from the sky beyond the ship.

“Hello,” Essek says. 

“Hey,” Caduceus says, shifting himself into a more relaxed position and offering Essek a smile. “What’s on your mind?”

Essek sits down heavily on a barrel. “Was it that obvious?” He sighs. “To think, I actually used to be good at putting on a mask.”

Caduceus shrugs. “Well, you don’t need one with us.”

“I had another Sending from court.”

“I thought they were done?”

“So did I. This was the Skysybil. There’s nothing … it’s nothing to be concerned about, I think.” Caduceus just looks at him evenly, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He repeats the words of the Sending and takes another breath. “It was … kind.” 

“And now you don’t know what to do with yourself. Because she offered you kindness and understanding, and you don’t think you did anything to earn it.” 

Essek shrugs; after all, he came to Caduceus knowing full well how horribly observant he can be. “She’s never said such things before. Not to me.”

“You know, it might not be a bad idea for you to start getting used to the idea that people don’t always need a reason to be kind.” 

Essek lifts his shoulders again and tries to smile. This isn’t working; he can’t parse these ideas, and he’s very sure Caduceus again misunderstands his world, and worse, the excessive generosity makes his nerves feel raw. 

“Oh hey, guys!” Jester pads gently across the wooden floor in bare feet and a simple nightgown. “So I noticed that you guys weren’t in the room, and I came looking to see if everything was okay.”

“Thanks, Jester,” Caduceus says. “We’re fine, just having a little talk about things.”

She sits down on the floor to Essek’s right, carefully folding her legs and tucking the gown over them. “So where were you in the talk?”

Essek opens his mouth to answer, but Caduceus beats him to the punch. “Essek still thinks he needs to earn people’s kindness.” 

His gut twitches at the words. There’s something about hearing it said so bluntly and so casually that pokes painfully at the id, makes him want to argue against it. 

“Well, that’s silly,” Jester says.

He wants to argue more. He furrows his brow. He can’t think of a single thing to say.

“Essek.” Jester gently touches his calf. “We’re your friends. You can trust us.”

“He doesn’t think he deserves friends. Not yet, not fully.”

“We’re your friends because we _want_ to be, Essek. You don’t have to worry.”

“It’s not you I worry about, Jester,” he says. “Or rather, it’s not your kindness that I find myself questioning now.”

She tilts her head and smiles. “Well, that’s good.”

“The Skysybil sent me a message earlier this evening, a rather compassionate one.” Again, he repeats the words of the message for Jester. “I … am not quite sure what to make of it, to be honest.”

“And you wanted to talk about it?” she asks excitedly. “That’s so great!”

“It is,” Caduceus says. 

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, like, before you always had to lie all the time and be by yourself, you know? But now you’re with us and you want to talk to us about how you’re feeling. You’ve grown so much!”

“Even just choosing to be here means something,” Caduceus says. “You’ve given up a lot in order to be a better man.”

Essek grimaces. “You should worry my motives are selfish. I’m happy to have left the Dynasty behind. The truth is, I didn’t do this to punish myself or to address the consequences of my actions.”

“Well,” Caduceus begins, pausing to carefully flip his long hair from one side to the other, “the road you’re following is a long one. It took a good while for the group to get to where they are now. You need to be patient with yourself as you take this journey.”

“How do I know where this road will lead?” Essek asks. “What if I just keep choosing to suit my own needs? I’ve done nothing else my whole life. The rest of you … you’re not like this. You put each other, and other things, ahead of yourselves constantly. And, honestly, I’m not sure I would even be capable …”

“It’s okay to be a little selfish,” Jester says. “We all have to do things for ourselves sometimes.”

Caduceus closes his eyes and smiles. “One day at a time is enough. I think you’re forgetting how much you’ve already done. You went places you weren’t comfortable to help Fjord, then again to help Jester.” 

Essek doesn’t know quite what to make of that, other than that Caduceus is being overly generous. “But I wanted to do those things. I’m saying, I don’t know … I have not been in a situation where I had to make a hard choice. I don’t know if I can live up to all of you.”

Caduceus puts a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Well, that’s true. You don’t truly know what choices you’ll make until you have to make them, no one does. Let’s see what happens. Just remember, you’ve made hard choices already.” 

Essek frowns. He honestly can’t think of anything he’s done to meet that description.

Jester shifts to her knees and touches Essek’s arm. “I think that stuff she said—the Skysybil was right about you, Essek.”

“I had a good feeling about her when I first saw her,” Caduceus says. “And I have a good feeling about you. I think you’ve found where you’re supposed to be.”

“I don’t find Fate particularly appealing,” Essek says. “What I hope for is potentiality. I hope that … that I am not bound to one path; that I can choose another one of my own will.”

“Well, there you go,” Caduceus says. “Maybe that’s what you’re meant for: free will.”

“You’re aware that is an absolute contradiction in terms?”

“Is it?” Caduceus gently scratches his chin. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Ah, here you all are.” Caleb’s hair is loose, and the moonlight flashes off it in bright silver as he moves into the light. “I am prepared to put up the dome if everyone is all set for the night?”

“We’re almost ready,” Caduceus says.

“Come sit with us!” Jester says. Her tail knocks into one of the barrels behind her.

“Is everything all right?” Caleb asks as he sits on a barrel next to Jester.

This time, Essek speaks first. “The Skysybil contacted me a short while ago, while you were with the ship’s navigator.” Caleb’s face hardens. “It was a friendly message, giving me her blessing. I am … still processing what that means.”

Caleb looks at the floor for a moment. “You said before that she has changed in her current life. Perhaps something in her more recent experiences has led her to be more understanding than in past lives.”

Essek isn’t sure how much Caleb knows of the Dynasty and its past relationship with the goblinkin who call it home, though he supposes Veth may have some idea—and  
therefore Caleb as well. Essek has seen Abrianna Mirimm argue staunchly in court for change, something the Dynasty has been slow to accept. Perhaps she saw something in Essek that called to her present-day sensibilities. 

“You may be right.”

“But you are worried,” Caleb says softly. 

“It’s just,” Essek stops and sighs. “I have only ever worried about my own interests and how to pursue them. I never had to wonder whether or not I could trust someone, because I trusted no one.” He buries his face in his hands, tangles his fingers into his hair. 

“You can trust us,” Jester says gently.

Essek looks out from behind his hands. “I believe you, but the stakes are very much higher now: if I miscalculate, it could harm people that I care for.”

“That’s great!” Caduceus says. “You’re changing the way you deal with the world, actively trying to avoid causing harm.”

“Well, how do I avoid it?”

“You talk to us,” Caleb says, taking hold of Essek’s hand. “Lean on your friends when you need them, and let them help you. I am still learning this myself, it seems.” He offers Essek a smile, but the worry and sadness are clear as starlight. 

“Perhaps, for now, I should cautiously accept her message for what it was. We will be on the lookout for trouble as it may arise.”

“Exactly!” Jester takes his other hand and squeezes it. “And, oh! I had an idea, I could ask Artagan if we can make you like a saint or something? I mean, you sort of martyred yourself on paper to help us out with TravelerCon.”

“See?” Caleb says, his grin far more genuine now. “The benefits of traveling with the Mighty Nein never cease.”

_____________________

It’s a fine morning on the Lucidian, the early sun comfortably warm on his skin. Essek strolls across the deck with much more confidence than he had a few days ago; he has grown used enough to the ship’s motion that the gentle shifting under his feet begins to feel almost natural to him.

Caleb is leaning on the railing, looking ahead of them, past where the front of the boat is carving its path through the ocean. “There are dolphins today,” he says. “They like to swim along the prow of the boat. I’m not sure why. They’re fascinating to watch.”

“You were an orca, briefly,” Essek says. “Did you learn anything about it then?”

“I was a little distracted,” Caleb says. “Hello.”

Essek joins him at the rail, shoulder to shoulder. “Hello,” he says, and kisses the apple of Caleb’s cheek. 

“So, that was an interesting few days,” Caleb says dryly.

“One could say that,” Essek replies. 

They hold each other’s gaze, the warm ocean air ruffling loose strands of Caleb’s hair. Essek breaks first, laughing into the back of his wrist, before joining Caleb in an undignified guffaw. Caleb reaches out and squeezes Essek’s shoulder as they each double over, the absurdity of their time on this island hitting them in fresh waves. 

“I think it goes without saying,” Caleb says, pushing Essek’s hair carefully back into place, “but I would like to say it anyway: I am very pleased that you are here with us. Unreservedly pleased.”

“Honestly? I feel the same way.”

Somewhere on the upper deck, the tortle begins what Essek has come to recognize as a twice daily ritual in which the bagpipes are played to ease superstitions and provide the crew with some mystical boon. He does his best to ignore it this time.

“There is a bit of an overlap in ship crew at the moment,” Caleb says. “An odd bit of time where all hands are on deck preparing for the change in shifts. We could … take advantage of such an overlap.”

“Below deck, then?”

“Please.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Brenatto’s Force Barricade**  
>  _6th-level evocation_  
>  **Casting Time:** 1 action  
>  **Range:** Self  
>  **Components:** V, S, M (iron ring)  
>  **Duration:** 1 minute (concentration)  
> You manifest an invisible barrier in the shape of a 15ft sphere, centered on yourself, that repels physical and magical attacks. The sphere lasts for one minute or until concentration is lost. Each unfriendly creature within the sphere must make a Constitution saving throw. Those creatures each take 6d6 force damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one, and are pushed 10 feet outside of the sphere.
> 
> Nothing—not physical objects, energy, or other spell effects—can pass through the barrier, in or out, though creatures within the sphere can breathe there. It is immune to all damage and can’t be dispelled by dispel magic. A disintegrate spell destroys the sphere instantly, however. In addition, unsecured objects that are within the sphere at the time of casting are likewise pushed 10 feet outside of the sphere. 
> 
> **At Higher Levels.** When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the sphere’s diameter increases by 5ft.  
>  **Spell Lists.** Graviturgy Wizard


End file.
